


Beyond Horizons

by Avistar123



Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, F/M, Gen, Technology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25917688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avistar123/pseuds/Avistar123
Summary: When four girls met each other on a planet with the exact same destination and goal in mind, none of them could've ever fathomed the adventures that lay in wait for them. That is assuming they don't rip each other to shreds beforehand.(Science Fiction AU)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 5
Kudos: 71





	1. Ember and Crescent

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth**

**Prologue (Ember and Crescent)**

* * *

As Ruby adjusted the scope on her sniper rifle, she waited for her target to come right into her crosshairs. Of course, calling it a rifle would be an understatement, given how it was actually a high impact energy sniper rifle that had adjustable capabilities with Dust and could use that very same energy to power a scythe but that wouldn't really be easy to roll off the tongue, would it?

Her watching eyes met her expectant target, an Alpha Beowolf guarding a pathfinder module located on its head which interfaced with its eyes to give it better tracking. Under different circumstances, such a threat would be truly terrifying.

However, with Ruby comfortably out of sight and with her tracking dead sight on the Alpha Beowolf's head, it was fair to say that the only thing terrifying, was the silence in the night. These badlands which she and Yang had to get through were filled with ruins of colonies, settlements, and the odd ship or 2. But they were also filled with Grimm, whose fusion of technological and biological… stuff made them a little harder to hunt down.

Luckily for the young hunter, it was not like she was ill-prepared for such a threat and if all else failed, her semblance did provide the perfect escape option.

Quickly, Ruby scanned around her surrounding to make sure she wasn't being snuck up on. After doing so she again scanned the area using her scope's techno finder thingy for the Alpha which had chosen to enter a hexagonal building with 2 floors and a skylight. The windows to the place… didn't exactly provide Ruby with the easiest shot. Luckily for Ruby, she already had a pretty good distraction.

That is assuming that distraction didn't end up dozing off in which case this was about to get much more complicated.

* * *

Sleep was extremely important for someone like Yang. Already her Aura systems within her Rig required her to have an extremely careful usage of the suit and the utilization of aura for some components of her prosthetic arm certainly tired out the bounty hunter, as did nonstop working on Bumblebee, which was the main thing Yang and Ruby were dependent on for getting across the badlands of Vale.

That combined with the lack of sleep the 2 of them had been getting due to some rather surprising Grimm Attacks meant that Yang had to deal with sleep loss while protecting Ruby. Of course, she would do it without a second thought, in fact if anything even tried to hurt Ruby, she was sure to leave it broken beyond repair but she was still human and was as such tied to its limits.

For some reason, her adorable redheaded sister didn't seem to have so many of those problems which Yang had believed was because of how many cookies they had packed for this journey. Like seriously, her little sister had packed 7 packets of cookies! How on earth she kept managing to go through them though, was something that Yang fully believed was incapable of being explained by science.

Exhausted, Yang dozing off when Ruby had given her the signal to draw out the Grimm. But then the buzzing in her right arm woke her up. She had been just recently dreaming of getting a spaceship converter for Bumblebee before she was rudely interrupted from her pleasant dream by her sister's buzzing over her reading.

"Yang! Yang! Ember, this is Crescent, do you read me?" said a voice from the intercom as Yang entered into a voice call with Ruby using the scroll tech in their rigs.

"I read ya loud and clear Crescent! What's the situation?" Yang said as she sleepily awoke from Bumblebee and entered the abandoned colony to find her sister perched on a sand dune, overlooking a hexagonal building.

"Well… there's this Alpha Beowolf which contains the pathfinding module we need to find the way to Beacon. Aaaand… it's in the bar with 4 more Beowolfs." Ruby reported over to Yang who had already begun to climb up to the roof of the bar with her awesome prosthetic arm, which had hooks to get into some of the Nooks and crannies of the walls to climb atop them.

"Lemme guess, you want me to push them out of the place?" Yang said as she used her other hand, which had a glove that allowed Yang to properly climb up the building and found a skylight which gave her many… impractically cool ideas for how to approach the situation. One of which was particularly lucrative to the thrill-seeking adventurer.

"Ruby, standby for Firefall." Yang exclaimed before punching out the skylight and falling down, with her gauntlets turning into short-range energy blasters. Taking aim at the Beowolfs inside the bar, she fired electric rounds into them, stunning them and holding their electronics and used her excess Kinetic Energy to slam the ground in front of her with fire causing the Alpha Bewolf to be pushed back by the force and thrown out of the bar, into her sister's crosshairs.

Quickly rolling and jumping, Yang gave a kick to the head of another Beowolf's thankfully unarmored head and after jumping off it delivered another shotgun blast to another Beowolf, holding off its offensive claws. Then she went after the other 2 Beowolfs remaining by giving them 2 jabs to their faces and then throwing another one out of the window of the hexagonal bar.

Unfortunately, by this time, the other Beowolf managed to use its sonic disruptor on Yang, stunning her as the shockwave passed over her electronics, causing a temporary disruption in them and giving the Beowolf enough time to punch her into the window as well before landing a nasty slash against her shoulder.

'Dammit not again!' Yang remarked as she furiously tried to beat her robotic arm into operation, which after 3 slaps, was returning to optimum capacity. However, this also gave the Beowolf plenty of time to go for a crushing blow with its jaws. Yang's reflexes, however, had something else to say about that possibility.

Acting in instinct, Yang latched on the jaw with her human hand, and after regaining full capacity with her robotic arm, made sure to create some new orifices in the Beowolf's head with some rapid punches. However, the other Beowolfs had already begun to circle her and she knew that she wasn't clearing them out. Not until, she could get some backup.

* * *

Ruby had already sniped the Alpha's head off with her charged shot and was waiting for Yang to come out of the window, before she remembered that her sister was known for never exiting a fight before it was finished and after taking the head off another unlucky Beowolf, Ruby quickly realized that she needed to get to Yang before she got swarmed by the remaining 3.

Swiftly using her semblance to enter the bar from another window, Ruby found herself to the backs of the 3 Beowolfs all of which were staring down her sister, with their mechanical and biological eyes. Quickly taking aim with her sniper, she immediately shot the one that was about to strike Yang in the back of its armored head, stunning the beast.

Upon seeing her, Yang gave a confident smirk as she let her own semblance loose and after taking all the energy she had stored up from her wounds, promptly stopped a Beowolf's claw with her own hand before blasting its head to smithereens with her arm cannon located within her prosthetic. This however left one of the Grimm to attack Ruby, and as it ran over towards the sniper, with her missing 2 of her shots, Ruby knew it was time to get a little more… up close and personal.

Promptly turning her sniper into a scythe blade and using her own aura to increase the weapon's effectiveness, Ruby jumped up to a table and after using her semblance to gain some air, promptly landed a slash which took off the Beowolf's head, clearing the bar of all the Grimm and leaving the 2 sisters to scrap for anything they could fit into their combat rigs.

Ruby had managed to find a barrel modification for her sniper that would allow it to fire 2 blasts of energy with one trigger pull in diverging paths, while Yang managed to find a charging module that was compatible with the shotgun in her left gauntlet.

"Well, I would say that was a pretty good hunt there, sis," Yang said as she casually exited the bar, outstretching her arms as they left the bar.

"We got 2 mods for our rigs, Yang! I can't wait to apply them when we get back to Bumblebee!" Ruby said as she practically ran her way over to the… missing body of the Alpha Beowolf?

Suddenly Ruby felt a push from her side, as she was pushed out of the claws of a Beowolf.

"Yang!"

Her sister had found the Beowolf and with no time to spare, pushed Ruby to the side and threw herself into the claws of the Beowolf where she was slashed thrice and then was thrown to the ground by the Beowolf attempting to bite her neck.

Cold Rage seeping into her veins, Ruby swapped her regular energy rounds for electric ones which she aimed at the Beowolf's broken cybernetic and fired, stunning the Beowolf which allowed Yang to deliver an enhanced double thrust punch that threw the Beowolf into the air, which broke her defensive shielding due to it taking too much aura.

Recognizing her elder sister's lack of protection, Ruby immediately used her semblance and combined her aura with Yang's, allowing them to reposition closer to Bumblebee and in a much better sniping spot.

"Yang! Are you ok?!" Ruby asked frantically, hoping her sister was alright.

"Ruby, look… out… behind you." Yang said, pointing weakly to Ruby's back.

Immediately turning her sniper into a scythe, Ruby blindly slashed behind her and hooked the Beowolf's side. Immediately hooking her scythe blade out of it, Ruby promptly brought her scythe blade up into the Grimm's face before pulling the trigger, destroying it as the broken electronics took care of the rest.

Sadly however, this meant that Ruby was unable to attain the pathfinder module they were looking for since in that state of mind she was more concerned with taking out the Beowolf which nearly killed her sister. But that was unimportant. All that mattered was making sure her sister would be ok.

* * *

Yang slowly opened her eyes to find herself in darkness. Was she having a nightmare? Was her sister ok?

She blinked a few times and heard the crackling of fire near her and beside it was a figure cloaked in red and white. Her eyes opened and she tried to find out who the figure was but when she blinked again, she found herself staring at a figure that was sitting by the fire, whose red cape and hood revealed her identity.

"Ru-Ruby?" Yang asked weakly, which immediately drew the redhead's attention towards her.

"Yang!" Ruby exclaimed as she tightly hugged Yang who embraced the hug. "I'm so sorry, I didn't- "

"Shhhh, Ruby it's ok, we made it through, didn't we?" Yang said as she noticed her prosthetic arm was missing and as such, she cradled Ruby' head with her human one.

"But I should've known that the Beowolf was there, I should've been faster to react! You shouldn't have to suffer so much because I was too slow!" Ruby replied, her voice breaking into tears as she buried her head into Yang's shoulder.

"Ruby please, don't blame yourself for this. I'm supposed to protect you, remember. If it means taking a few bad hits every now and then, then so be it. But one thing's for sure, I'll always protect you, no matter what happens, I'll be there and I'm not giving up on you know, not ever. Now please, stop blaming yourself and rest. It's been a long day okay? I think you can use some rest." Yang replied in her softest tone, knowing that Ruby needed nothing more than comfort and reassurance.

"Please don't go." Ruby begged of her, which broke Yang, knowing what had happened when she tried to find out the truth about her mother.

"Ruby, I promise I won't go." Yang gently reassured the young huntress as she lay her head in Yang's gentle embrace, with Yang wiping away Ruby's tears, letting the exhausted girl sleep in her arms, eventually also falling asleep with her.

* * *

The next morning, Ruby woke up in the embrace of her sister who was still holding her, sleeping soundly with her. Reassured with the knowledge her sister was still with her, Ruby slowly moved out of her embrace and moved towards Bumblebee and after opening the Tinkering hatch, set out Yang's arm on the modification grid. She also took out some cookies to snack on as she worked on Yang's arm.

The component she received from the Grimm was meant to be installed near the wrist and was an added-on attachment to the wristguard. Further analysis of the charge mod, by Bumblebee's internal computing revealed that the component could alter the shotgun blast to provide it some more range, at the cost of rapid-fire capability. Ruby knew that her sister would enjoy some more options to kick Grimm butt and as such, she got to work on a schematic to give Yang the ability to choose when she wanted to with the simple flick of a button.

Taking out her tools and the spare metallic parts and electronics Ruby had with her, by her insistence, Ruby was able to craft a makeshift adapter that would serve as the main tool to allow Yang to control how her new addition would work. She would have tried to integrate this into the electronics of Yang's robotic arm but the Atlesian's always made their tech so bafflingly confusing with all the settings and components. Nothing simple like the ones used by Vale which were simple to understand and operate with much fewer moving parts.

Luckily, she wasn't completely clueless with Atlesian tech and as such she was able to create a crude version of an adapter switch which she wasn't yet sure about in terms of its reliability. Which had again gotten her worried again. What if her tinkering had ended up ruining Yang's new arm? What would happen if her modification ended up backfiring in battle?

Suddenly, she felt one strong arm wrap around her chest and heard the loud, familiar voice of her sister saying "Good morning Rubes! Did ya sleep alright?"

"Good Morning Yang and I slept perfectly fine, thanks to my big sis!" Ruby said as she turned and hugged her back, perhaps a bit much in terms of affection but for both of them, hugs were a symbol of their bond towards each other. Plus, they were just fun to give out in general.

"Ruby! Did you start working on something before you had anything to eat?!" Yang asked upon seeing her arm on the holo-workstation.

"Uhhh Yang, I don't know what you're talking about? Hehe… See I ate some cookies." Ruby said as she gestured to the open refreshment storage location inside Bumblebee, which sure enough had some cookies missing.

"Ruby! Cookies aren't meant to be breakfast! Stop working on that arm right now, I'll make something from the Ready to Eat Meals we have." Yang exclaimed as she realized Ruby was not in any means prepared for this day.

"Yannnnggg! Those are gross! They have no flavor nor any taste!" Ruby complained, as Yang took out some of the REMs and started to follow the procedure to make them edible again.

"Ruby, we need these REMs to make sure we don't end up getting to Beacon with all sorts of nasty germs and diseases. You know how dangerous things can be out here." Yang explained with a knowing smile on her face.

Of course, Yang knew about Ruby's antics when it came to food! Of course, she knew how to make Ruby understand her point was valid. But that still didn't mean Ruby was particularly happy about the situation, which was clear given from the way she pouted at Yang.

After Yang handed her REMs which were flavored in… strawberries? How did Yang not tell her about this sooner!

"There were strawberry flavored REMs?! How could you not tell me?!" Ruby said, making her sister laugh.

"I dunno really, probably because if I told you about them, then you would probably eat them all in a single go. But really, I only found out that they existed up until now." Yang said as she scrunched up her yellow-colored REM of which Ruby didn't know the flavor.

And while REMs were disgusting, it was true that the strawberry flavored one was the best. Also enhancing the taste, was the fact that Ruby was actually famished after waking up, despite the efforts of her cookies. If all REMs were like this one, then Ruby would probably have to stop complaining about eating these REMs.

"So, what did you do to my arm?" Yang said as she finished her meal and reattached her arm, only noticing the change to the back of the wrist guard which had a strange red and black switch.

"Hmnghgh! Hmnghgh!" Ruby tried to warn Yang despite the fact that she hadn't finished her REM.

"Woah! Slow down there, speedster! First, finish your meal then tell me what you did." Yang said as she put her hands up in the universal slow down sign between the 2 sisters.

Quickly eating through her REM which was sooo sticky and chewy for some reason, Ruby immediately warned Yang about the new mod she had installed.

"I tried to attach that charge mod to your arm, please be careful with it-" Ruby said as she watched in horror as Yang flipped the switch and fired into a rock, giving off a shockwave that was able to turn the rock into nothing but dust.

"Woah! Now, this is cool! Thanks, Rubes!" Yang said as she quickly tried to fan her new arm which had overheated from the effort. "Although, it may get a little difficult to maintain this arm's thermal systems if only one shot managed to create so much heat."

"Are you ok?" Ruby said as she frantically brought out her cooling spray which allowed her to maintain her tinkered things whenever they got a little… heated.

After spraying it on Yang's arm which allowed her to rest a little more easily without needing to worry about the arm breaking Yang's defensive aura with its internal heat.

"I'm fine Ruby, although I think you may want to create some more exhaust ports so that the gun doesn't end up melting in the middle of combat." Yang said with a joking smile which reassured Ruby that her sister was just fine.

"Yeah I think I'll do that right- "Ruby tried to say before her vision turned to something falling down, making her eyes go wide.

"Ruby?" Yang asked, wondering what on earth had caught her sister's eye before she turned around and found a ship going down on the surface.

"We need to go now!" Ruby shouted as she got atop of Bumblebee waiting for her sister to join her on the bike.

 **Both sisters quickly headed towards the spaceship, praying that they could arrive quick enough to save anyone unlucky enough to be trapped inside the** **spaceship.**

* * *

**A/N: Well this was a long time coming, but welcome to my first foray in to the world of Sci Fi! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do writing it! Huge shout out to my beta readers TimeX13, 0neWhoWanders and Riggy_Minus for helping me with this story. I couldn't have done it without them.**

**Please do review as seeing the thoughts and opinions of others really helps me keep going and wanting to work on this story and as always keep moving forward!**


	2. Shrouded in Ice

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Prologue: (Shrouded in Ice)**

* * *

Freedom.

What a joyous sensation it was. Especially for someone like Weiss, who had spent almost her entire life controlled by her father, who found no interest in Weiss's own aspirations. Had he had his way, Weiss would be stuck at some desk level job in her father's company, waiting until Jacques saw her to be worthy of running his company. Thankfully, Weiss had gained enough of her senses to leave before Jacques took away all her freedom. Thanks to some assistance from Klein, her butler who was more of a father to Weiss than Jacques ever was and some assistance from Winter, Weiss had managed to leave the cold planet she once called home on a ship set for the Vale quadrant of the Remnant System.

She even managed to leave with a combat rig, one of the state-of-the-art pieces of equipment used by the Hunters for their missions. And she would need Myrtenaster if she was to accomplish her goal of becoming a member of the Hunters. She had known about the team system followed by all the Hunter divisions all across the Remnant System, be it Atlas to Vacuo and Vale was no different. She hoped that at the very least she could be paired up with someone competent and more… up to her standards.

She looked out the glass windows of her ship, looking out at the path she travelled, watching the stars and the various asteroids and ship fragments float about in the infinite space all around her. Given how hastily this ship was put together, however, Weiss would be lucky if she didn't end up like one of those frozen pieces of salvage she saw in the space around her.

In order to prevent any sort of tracking by her father, Winter had to hastily create the ship from pieces and parts of salvage she managed to find from her missions. Performing all this while making sure their father didn't find out, and also ensuring the ship was built in due time meant that a few corners had to be cut when it came to the quality of the vessel.

But that was a small price to pay for freedom. Freedom from a life of cold and painful separation from whatever little she held dear to her icy heart. One where piece by piece, everything that made Weiss who she was would be ripped away to keep the SDC afloat. A life where the fire of her soul would be snuffed out as a willing sacrifice to the company her father corrupted.

For this was her life, and she was free to live it as she pleased.

As she looked back into the navigator on the ship to check her path however, she was surprised to find another ship in the vicinity of her own. Pulling up further details of the ship revealed little about the identity of the ship, only providing Weiss with the basic build of the ship, which appeared to be a strider class ship of Mistralian make, which did little to offset Weiss's nerves. She had heard plenty of stories of Mistralian pirates attacking Cargo ships, disguising their weapons inside such ships.

Not to mention the equally dangerous White Fang, whose continued actions against her family had always put a target on her back or even the various bounty hunters who her father might have sent to 'extract' Weiss back to her father.

Immediately activating the defensive shielding on her ship, Weiss armed her Dust Rapier from the modular grip she had hidden under her coat and took out her dueling pistol armed with high velocity, non-piercing rounds Dust Rounds. A little paranoid perhaps but in the expanse of space, one can never be too safe. And her suspicion turned out to be true, as was evident by the shot fired by the strider ship.

Thanks to the shielding of the ship however, the shot did little more than graze the hull. If there was one thing this rag tag ship wasn't lacking, it was features. And thankfully, one of those features happened to be a foldable railgun. Activating the turret on the onboard computer, Weiss was immediately synced in towards the weapon's turret and after finding her target, aimed her shot and fired at the ship.

Unfortunately, due to the limited Dust applications of the weapon, Weiss was only able to fire a regular shot which would at best cripple the movement systems of the ship. Weiss needed to get to the nearest Wormhole and fast, before the Strider managed to regain full maneuverability and started to fire back at Weiss's ship.

Plotting a course for a nearby Wormhole on her navigator, Weiss primed the jump drive of her ship with the planned course to take her to Vale, where she hoped the authorities would be able to assist her with escaping from her pursuer, whoever they were. Given by the predictions on her computer, Weiss would be able to escape into the wormhole before her pursuer could recover.

Arming the railgun turret on the side of her ship, Weiss again took aim at the ship, letting the autopilot on the ship take over. But as she aimed at the Dust stabilizers present on the ship, which, given by their state, seemed to be running out of Power. A well-placed shot could either destroy the whole ship or immobilize it and out of the 2 Weiss was content with the latter.

But before Weiss could charge up the shot, she felt a thud strike the ship, shaking the ship. Immediately, leaving the view of her turret, she checked the onboard systems in order to make sure that nothing was damaged permanently. But she had bigger worries than just the ship's systems as she felt 4 more thuds strike her ship. Analysis of the source revealed an extremely worrying problem however, one that Weiss would be lucky to escape from alive.

Grimm pods, filled with the biotechnological beasts had landed on her ship and given by the scraping and screeching sounds coming from the ceiling, Weiss was about to expect some extremely dangerous company.

As the first Ravager fell and entered and bared its arm blades at Weiss, she looked down the Ravager's malicious red eyes, aimed her revolver at the beast and fired a shot between them. As she watched the beast fall to the ground, she felt a blow to the back of her head and felt the airlock open, sending her into the Dust storage unit of the ship where she lost consciousness after meeting the cold wall of the room, the last thoughts on her mind being that the ship that was supposed to grant her freedom, may become her tomb.

* * *

Blake hadn't been having a good couple of days since she defected from the White Fang. After making an escape from Adam in the Saunus belt, after a botched attempt to steal some cargo, Blake ended up using one of the escape pods aboard Adam Taurus's ship and landed on Mistral's surface station where she crash landed, only surviving thanks to the assistance of her combat rig, Gambol Shroud, which combined the ease of use and tech of the Atlesians rigs with the stealth capabilities of the Mistralian rigs, forming a exosuit which could be hidden very easily as a jumpsuit and bow which nicely covered her ears. The rig came with a specialized pistol and ballistic scythe/katana which had a few more components that Blake was still attempting to learn how to effectively use.

After a few days of living off scraps, Blake needed to quickly find a way off Mistral and planned on heading towards Vale to maybe start a new life. But she quickly found that without Lien she wouldn't be able to pay for such a trip and as such she planned on getting to Vale by more _illegal_ means.

Using the suit's capabilities, which included quiet footsteps, wall climbing gloves and sensor disruptors, she managed to find her way onto a ship that was on course for Vale. Unfortunately, Blake was unable to predict that a group of Mistralian Pirates would board the ship and end up commandeering it when the ship was planning to head to Vale. After spending 3 days hiding from the Pirates, she was sold out by one of the captured crew and was captured by them and was held in the brig of the ship.

And given from what she had been eavesdropping, if she didn't get out quickly, she was going to end up sold as a slave in one of the many Black Markets present around Mistral.

Luckily, the Pirates had never accounted for Blake's exosuit. Quickly using her semblance, Blake managed to leave a decoy and managed to find a safe place where she used her hardlight blade in conjunction with her metallic one to break out of her bonds and after the Pirates noticed Blake's decoy, she detonated the fire dust she placed in her decoy and quickly made her way through the ship, hoping to find an escape pod to escape from this prison.

Quickly however, the plan became quite complicated as was evident by the Grimm pods which had managed to arrive onto the strider. As soon as she went up the upper deck, she found herself quickly surrounded by 4 Ravagers. After seeing one of them lunge at her with its arm blade, Blake used her semblance to jump up and shoot at the Ravager's head, downing it with 3 dust shots.

Quickly swinging her ballistic scythe, Blake hooked it onto one of the sides of the Ravager and pulled it into another, sending both of them to the ground. Landing on the mechanical spine of another, Blake plunged her dust blade into the back of the beast. Jumping off its spine, Blake as she fell shot, quickly downing the 3 Grimm.

Rolling to her feet, Blake took note of her surroundings and checked her aura through a bar on her arm. After finding at 70% she checked her path to the escape pods and once again snuck into the shadows of the deck and made her way to one of them. Upon entering one of the escape pods, Blake quickly entered in the coordinates of the nearest wormhole, hoping that the move wouldn't take too much fuel.

Blake was about to press the eject button when she heard the whispering of a voice she hoped to never hear again.

"Hello darling." said the voice within her exosuit, nearly stopping Blake's heart with fear as she froze. "Do you really think you can run forever?"

"N-No! How can you be here?!" Blake exclaimed out, in fear as she heard the familiar voice of Adam Taurus.

"Face it Blake, you can keep trying to run fruitlessly away from me, hunted down by your very brothers and sisters for your betrayal till we find you or you can come back and face the consequences."

"Get out! I want nothing to do with you!"

"It's your choice Blake. This doesn't need to escalate after all. You can always come back."

"I'm done with you, Adam. Leave me alone!"

"Well, you've made your choice. Time for me to make mine." Adam replied, his voice making Blake shudder in fear as she felt her exosuit begin to lock up. "You could've made this easy on yourself."

Snapping herself out of her fear, Blake slammed the eject button on her escape pod and fired it blindly hoping she could at least get out of the vessel and land someplace where she could hopefully deactivate her exosuit in order to stave off the threat to her life. Head slamming into the restraints, with most of the impact being absorbed by her suit, Blake was quickly sent into the expanse of space, hoping her next landing wouldn't be her last.

*SLAM*

The impact left Blake's aura flickering, but that was the least of her concerns, at least with the noises she was hearing from inside the ship.

* * *

Weiss woke up to the sound of gunfire and screeching as she rubbed her head and gathered her weapons. Resting against the wall, she took note of the situation around her. There were probably more Grimm outside waiting for her meaning she had no time to waste. Taking into account the gunfire, whoever was onboard her ship was also probably hostile but still had the sense to prioritize the Grimm, meaning if Weiss could at least get to the Wormhole, she could manage a quick escape before dealing with her stowaway.

As she was about to open the door, she saw 2 blades protrude out the door suddenly making her jump back and shoot into the closest approximation of where the beast's head would be. After 2 missed shots, she finally found some success as the scraping stopped and she heard a thud fall to the floor.

Sliding the door open, Weiss took in the scene. A black blur with red accents was slashing the Grimm around her leaving 3 on the floor and impressively bringing down one of the Ravagers using a scissor kick. Unfortunately, the blur had forgotten about the rising number of Grimm on the system and quickly was knocked to the floor by a kick from a Monarch Ravager.

It's metallic crown, adorned with spikes, was poised to strike. Luckily for the stowaway, Weiss was concerned with removing the Grimm from the ship, rather than dealing with a potential newcomer. Quickly forming a Glyph using the holographic projections her suit semblance allowed, Weiss blocked the Ravager's head and sent it flying into the wall opposite to her.

"I don't know who you are or why you're here, but if we don't clear the Grimm, we're doomed. So, let's call for a truce until we get to a safe place."

"I know who you are, Schnee, but I'm also inclined towards escaping this ship. So, I accept your request." replied the raven-haired girl who seemed to have a grudge against her family.

Not that she cared, she had plenty of people that promised her bloody murder or threatened her family for the long list of morally questionable actions her father had committed. Some of them took the lives of family members and one nearly cost her, her life.

At least compared to the rest, this one didn't immediately want to kill her.

As she heard the Ravager snarling as it got poised to attack them both, Weiss quickly took out some Ice Dust from the Storage unit and armed her Revolver with the same type of rounds. The raven-haired girl simply took out her backup pistol and aimed it at the beast, which was now charging at them both, hoping to skewer them with it's arm blades.

Weiss chose to shoot at the Ravager's knees which turned out to be a good choice as her shots slowed down the beast as ice grew on its mechanical legs causing it to slow down long enough for her companion to land an accurate shot to the Ravager's crown making it lose most of spokes that provided it the shielding around it's head.

It didn't stop it from pouncing on Weiss, which made Weiss seriously question what on earth she had done to be the first priority of EVERY SINGLE PREDATOR in this galaxy. Luckily as she ducked, she brought her Dust Blade through the Grimm's chest and as she gracefully spun under the Grimm, she watched as it tumbled and fell onto the ground.

But given from the flashing red eyes she was seeing; she probably hadn't killed the Grimm. A thought which was immediately proven as the Beast jumped at Weiss but before it even got the opportunity to pounce, it was thrown to the control panel by Weiss's new companion with a swift dropkick.

Roaring in pain, the Beast let out a deafening scream which made Weiss cover her ears in pain as her ears began to ring. But it seemed to affect her companion far worse as her companion was… only covering her bow? Raising her revolver, Weiss blindly fired at the Grimm but only hit the control deck with the first shot but struck the beast's chest with another, which seemed to stop it from screeching.

Both her and her companion dazed and with her ears ringing, Weiss would be lucky to escape this conflict without any major injuries.

The Ravager still had some fight left in him however, as she after recovering, it rushed forwards with blinding speed and grabbed Weiss by the shoulder before throwing her into the control panel. The impact shook her to her core as she fell off the panel and onto the cold floor with red lights flickering all over the ship. Desperately trying to find her gun, she looked around and found her revolver lying on the floor to her right. She tried to move her body towards it but found her boots snagged on the desk. Out of her holster, she took out her Dust Sword and aimed it carefully at the hook which had her leg snagged. She had no idea what impact a Dust strike would have to her aura, but she certainly didn't want to find out.

Before Weiss could even get the chance to do as such, however, her right arm slammed to the floor making her wince in pain and causing her aura to flare up twice. As she looked to her now pinned arm, she found herself looking into the eyes of the Ravager from before with its left leg pinning her arm and its right armblade poised to stab Weiss. There was no time to even build a Glyph to block the strike. The Ravager just had her completely beat.

As the blade came down on Weiss's helpless body, she wondered what she had done to deserve such a fate. But the impact never came.

The raven haired girl managed to recover from being sent to the floor after the sonic scream and had grappled the Grimm by it's back, plunging her metallic blade into the beast neck before sliding of it's back and slashing the chest of the Grimm with a horizontal slash that revealed the amberlight inside the beast.

Recovering from her pinned position and slashing off the hook that kept her stuck to the control panel and made a Glyph in the ground before her. Eyes flashing to her companion, both her and Weiss came to a silent agreement about their next action.

Jumping off the Glyph, Weiss plunged her Dust Blade into the amberlight opening before quickly pulling it out and slashing its knees cutting it down into one knee. Meanwhile her companion slashed off the beast's right arm before it could strike Weiss and after pulling her metallic blade out of the Beast neck, slashed it's head off with a cross slash, silencing the now headless beast.

But without even a second to breathe, the entire ship shook violently and rattled. A look around the control panel revealed that the ship was severely damaged by the Grimm with some systems being hijacked. Rushing over to the panel, Weiss quickly directed the ship's thrusters towards the wormhole in front of us.

However, she found the systems slowly being taken over by Grimm and as such she quickly switched off the autopilot and activated the manual guidance systems. She was tired of everyone taking away her agency and she was not going to let her first real choice be her last.

She had already placed the ship in an irreversible path towards the wormhole when she heard screaming from behind her. Turning around she saw her raven-haired companion had collapsed and was starting to scream painfully as she clutched her head. Her eyes revealed a maddening glare and given from how unnaturally she was getting up, Weiss could only imagine what horrors were afflicting the girl.

Taking out her Dust Blade and using the Ice Dust she still had left, she plunged the blade into the ground, which when combined with her glyphs made ice that covered her companions foot locking her in place. Immediately turning around, she sent the ship into maximum speed and activated the jump drive as she randomly chose a location to jump to.

**All she could hope for now was that wherever she went, help would be close by.**

* * *

**A/N: Second Prologue complete! I hope you're enjoying this story so far. Again huge shoutout to my betas TimeX13, 0neWhoWanders and Riggy_Minus! They are all amazing writers and you should definitely check out their stuff. Next update will be on the 22nd of August!**

**Please do review to let me know what all I can improve, don't be toxic and as always Keep Moving Forward!**


	3. Greetings

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Greetings**

* * *

Rushing forward to the crashed ship, Ruby and Yang immediately activated their aura shields as they noticed the ship had Grimm pods on it. Jumping off Bumblebee, Ruby quickly shot out at two dazed ravagers who were still getting up, destroying their heads. Yang meanwhile jumped off her bike, after making it run over another ravager that had managed to get up, slamming the ground with her fists forming a circle of fire around her as she made two other ravagers catch fire. After clearing out the Grimm using their respective weapons, Ruby and Yang chose to venture deeper into the destroyed ship, looking for survivors.

As they entered the main deck of the ship, they moved over pieces of metal and cut through wires hoping to free any trapped crew. Soon they came up to what appeared to be the cockpit of the ship and after looking through the destroyed navigation system, found that it originated from the Atlesian quadrant. The ship appeared to be hastily made but well put together in terms of shielding and maneuverability to Ruby. She hoped that at the very least they could find an emergency beacon or a signal flare in order to call for more immediate assistance.

Browsing through the cracked navigator, Ruby managed to find something related to a beacon when she heard her sister exclaim "Ruby!"

"What is it Yang?" Ruby said as she turned her head to find the voice of her sister which had gone to the wall behind the navigator. The ship's navigation deck was strangely placed to the side of a corridor and to it's back was a room that seemed to be used for storage.

"It looks like we have a survivor, although her combat rig seems to be glowing red in some places." Yang replied, as she checked to see if the survivor was still breathing.

"Wait red? Yang, get away from her!" Ruby warned, a split second too late as the survivor grabbed Yang by the throat, suddenly coming to life, despite her eyes being closed.

Immediately, hooking her attacker with her robotic arm, she managed to get her attacker to forgo her grip on her and then followed with a left hook. Her attacker was fast however, and after ducking under the punch she kicked Yang in the gut and then struck her right knee with her left leg, sending Yang to one knee. Elbowing Yang in the chest and then rising up to knee her in the face, her attacker picked up her shortsword and was about to impale Yang in the chest.

But as she stood over Yang, Ruby had armed her sniper and with a carefully aimed shot, struck out at the attacker's chest managing to disable her suit long enough for the young tinkerer to attempt a strike with her scythe. Only to find the girl's amber eyes looking at her as her blade met empty air and in the blink of an eye, she felt the wind knocked out of her lungs before receiving a boot up her face, which sent her rolling to the floor.

As she got up, she found herself about to meet a hardlight blade to her neck and so she ducked and swept her legs across the floor, downing her attacker with a thud to the ground. Taking the opportunity to reposition Ruby immediately escaped from the close quarters environment her attacker had forced her into and repositioned as such to her sister with a red blur.

Upon checking Yang's rig on her omni scroll, she found Yang's aura was still active, but the concussive force had left Yang down on the floor. After swiftly moving Yang to a safer area, Ruby took aim at her attacker only to find her missing. Stepping into the daylight navigation area, Ruby nervously walked around, completely unaware of the Grimm infected attacker stalking her movements from behind.

* * *

As Weiss's eyes fluttered open, she immediately took note of her surroundings. She was haphazardly lying on some dust crates which hadn't gone volatile. Getting off the crate, which happened to be a burn dust crate, Weiss looked around the floor to find her dust blade's hilt close by and her revolver laying on another crate. Recovering her weapons, she tried to check her aura systems but quickly found her scroll interface was scrambled and was only showing gibberish.

Hearing another sound from outside made Weiss immediately activate her dust blade as she prepared herself to fight off the people who had come to hunt her down. She may have been through a crash, but it would take a lot more to put her down for good.

Activating her dust blade, she cut a hole through the door and debris blocking her path. With a quick boot to the door, she broke it down to find her earlier companion being grappled by a blonde-haired girl who was trying to keep her companion off a redhead who was being pinned to the floor. Her companion immediately straightened herself and threw herself against the wall which allowed her to escape the blonde's grip.

Her attempt at retaliation with a back kick, however, was caught by the blonde, who grabbed her leg and elbowed it, making her companion cry out an inhumane scream of pain. After elbowing the blonde in the face and stomach, her companion front kicked off her. Sizing up the blonde, Weiss shot her with her revolver, firing two shots.

The first shot connected with her stomach, making her double over in a gasp of pain. The second however was blocked by the brawler's metallic arm. As she saw the girl charging a shot from her metallic arm, Weiss immediately rolled to the left and blocked a yellow wave of energy that sent the metallic panels of the ship outside into the badlands, letting some more light into the crashed ship, allowing Weiss to properly make out her opponent.

Crimson eyes, red hot gauntlets and an aura of rage looked down at Weiss's slender frame. Luckily it seemed that her companion was still on her side as she managed to strike Yang's knees with her metallic sword and then kneed her in the stomach before attempting to kick her across the face.

However, the brawler was faster than she looked and after again grabbing her attacker's leg and this time threw her against the wall before landing two punches to her attacker's chest which had now lost their aura and were completely vulnerable. Taking careful aim, Weiss aimed a shot at the blonde's spine hoping to strike a critical point of her combat rig, in order to disable her aura.

As she took the shot, she felt a tug against her left leg and her shot only struck the blonde's back, which still was enough to make the blonde's aura flicker once.

The person on the ground who stopped her was a redheaded girl, also wearing a combat rig. After feeling a swift kick to her legs, she was knocked to her knees as the girl pleaded with her.

"Stop! We don't want to harm you!" said the girl in an unbelievably high-pitched voice.

"Sure, let me trust the two bandits who have come to loot my ship over the person who helped me survive a Grimm attack. That seems like a great idea!" Weiss replied, sarcasm dripping into her voice.

"WHAT?! We came to help you! The person on your ship attacked us when we checked up on her!" The girl exclaimed in horror as she desperately tried to get the gun out of Weiss's hands.

"Lies! You bandits will do anything to get an advantage!" Weiss snapped back, unconvinced by the redhead's answer.

"I swear! We don't want to do anything other than help!" replied the girl who was seriously not making a good case, given how she was struggling to disarm Weiss.

Looking over to the side, she found that her companion had beaten the blonde to the floor thanks to Weiss's intervention and was now approaching towards both Weiss and the redhead who was still struggling with Weiss for her revolver.

' _Good. At least she'll be able to help me deal with these savages.'_ Weiss thought as she kneed the redhead in the stomach and waited for her companion to finish the fight. To her horror however, her companion pounced on Weiss instead and forced her against the navigation deck.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! You were on my side against the Grimm!" Weiss replied, not realizing what the flashing red light meant on her exosuit.

As she felt the hardlight blade activate from her now foe, Weiss watched in horror as her attacker prepared to plunge it into her neck. But before the strike could even land, she noticed a hardlight scythe blade came up to her attacker's neck and pulled her away from Weiss and towards the back of the ship.

Upon looking to find her savior, Weiss found the redheaded girl from before, who had now pulled out a massive scythe far bigger than her, extending a hand to her. Accepting her hand, Weiss collected her revolver and questioned the redhead "Why did you help me?"

"I told you before, we aren't bandits! We saw the ship crash and came over to help out!" the redhead frantically said.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because that's what a huntress would do. Now come on we need to knock out your friend!" the redhead replied, earning a look of confusion.

"She's not my friend!" Weiss snapped.

"Is companion better?!" asked the redhead as she jumped and turned to strike.

"Do you need to talk in the middle of a fight?!" Weiss snapped as she aimed another shot at their attacker who ducked to avoid the redhead's swing.

The shot landed on her companion's leg but instead of her crying out in pain, her entire body melted into the shadows and reappeared in front of her, landing a kick on her stomach. The ribbon on her metallic blade had managed to catch the redhead's leg and sent her to the ground with a thud.

Weiss's aura flickered rapidly as her attacker kneed her in the head before slashing her stomach with her hardlight blade, sparking as it struck Weiss's body. Her aura luckily managed to absorb most of the concussive force and allowed Weiss to power through the pain to quickly slash the attacker with her own hardlight blade.

The strike was dodged but the revolver was still aimed and after another shot, she managed to stun her attacker making her aura flicker twice. Weiss tried to create a glyph, not realizing her aura had been depleted completely and as such when her attempt projected nothing, she only looked in horror as she was slashed against her stomach, her clothing not providing the covering without the aura that protected it.

Blood started to trickle out as she dropped to her knees. She looked up to the face of her attacker, staring deep into those crimson-tinted eyes which had opened, giving her the appearance of a Grimm. Her metallic blade came down to slash the revolver in her left hand before she attempted to plunge her sword into Weiss's chest. But that attempt failed as in a flash of red, the redhead appeared over her and with her hardlight scythe, she slashed the metallic blade.

The metal somehow resisted the hardlight's edge but was still pulled far away from Weiss, giving her enough time to draw her own dust blade, and stab her opponent in the knees and stomach before delivering a slash to her opponent's cheek breaking her opponent's aura. Her ally followed up with a kick, by using her momentum by anchoring her scythe into the metallic floor and delivering a spinning kick that sent their attacker flying towards the blonde, whose hair now glowing with rage told Weiss all she needed to know about the fate of her attacker.

With a sudden thud of against the metallic ship their attacker finally fell to the floor, unconscious.

"You!" shouted the blonde as she glowered at Weiss, her crimson eyes seething with rage.

"Yang! Wait!" the redhead said, surprising Weiss with her concern.

"You shot me!" said the blonde, who was named Yang apparently.

"I thought you were a bandit!" Weiss snapped back.

"Really?"

"You came to MY ship, attacking the ONE person who helped me survive a Grimm attack!" she accused.

"Yeah if you didn't notice princess that same person nearly tried to kill me and my sister! In fact, she just tried to kill you too."

"Will both of you please shut up!" the redhead interjected which somehow shut them both up.

"What is it Ruby?" Yang asked, her rage turning to concern "Are you ok? Did you get hurt?"

"No, but she got slashed in the stomach. Can you please check up on her, I'll take care of the other girl's combat rig." Ruby replied, her concern strangely comforting, despite her childishness.

As Ruby said those words however, Weiss felt her vision begin to blur and she passed out from blood loss with Ruby screeching over her.

* * *

"Ruby! Get this girl on a table of some kind of elevated surface in the ship! I'm bringing the first aid kit from Bumblebee" Yang replied. After bringing the kit over to the white-haired girl, she hurriedly passed it over her unconscious and bleeding body. Quickly removing her blood-stained coat, she checked the bioscanner which revealed a cut on her chest. Luckily, it wasn't able to pierce through the stomach. "Go check on the other one Ruby! I got this one."

What was more worrying though was her aura, which had been completely drained. If she didn't get her some assistance, with restoring it then her stomach wound may escalate into something far worse. Grabbing a syringe of aura, the last one she had, she injected it into the girl's wrist. After hastily grabbing antiseptic, she cleaned up the wound and closed it using a bandage.

The white-haired girl would need another one of those syringes and that would mean another trip to one of the destroyed settlements. But she knew that Ruby wouldn't give up until she was able to make sure that the girl was safe, so she decided to move her down. A close inspection of her equipment revealed that she was also wearing a combat rig, except hers was integrated with her clothing. No doubt an Atlesian wonder.

She also had access to a dust blade and a revolver, which Yang was very painfully reminded of during her fight with Ruby. What she had no idea about was what had been going on with the raven-haired girl. Her exosuit 'hot damn did she look good with that on!' seemed to have had a malfunction as Ruby put it. Apparently, the Anti Grimm hijack systems were tampered with somehow.

As she looked over Bumblebee, she saw her sister gingerly using her scroll on the raven-haired girl's unconscious body. How Ruby managed to pull off her techno wizardry, she had no idea but as long as it meant that her and Yang would have a better chance of making it to Vale, she was perfectly happy with letting her sister take the lead.

Heading over to her sister she noticed that the storage room of the ship contained a butt ton of Dust, and all of it had the Schnee Dust Company logo on it. Whoever their white-haired companion was, she was certainly important to the company to be carrying _that much_ dust.

"Rubes, you okay?" she asked hoping her sister was doing a little better.

"Yeah Yang, I'm fine, just a little frazzled. Is the 'princess' okay?"

"Well her aura got depleted and I don't think she's a native to Vale since it was pretty clear that her aura wasn't used to this climate. I've given her an aura shot for now, but I think we might need to give her another one if we want to make sure she survives, since I don't want to find out what happens with recapitulation sickness. What about you Rubes? Whatcha ya doing?" Yang replied casually as she sat down next to her sister.

"Working on rewiring some of these… oof!... hijack prevention units. It seems like they had been tampered with when she got here… hence why her aura failed so quickly against the Grimm." Ruby said as she furiously grunted, trying to 'rewire the hijack prevention units.'

"Are you sure there's no more Grimm inside? I can always punch her in the gut to make up for what she did?" she offered with a humorous smile, awaiting a horrified expression on Ruby's face which she was quickly rewarded with.

"Yang! Bad role model! We're supposed to help people not hurt them more! And I'm pretty sure you destroyed every trace of the Grimm with that punch of yours. It's a miracle you didn't end up breaking her aura of doing something worse."

"Eh, I have my ways. But seriously let me know if you need me to punch this girl a new one, I can't wait to pay her back for what she did-" Yang said before she heard a sharp gasp. "Ruby?"

"That wasn't me. It was her." Ruby replied as she stopped 'doing her thing' and immediately tried to take out her sniper, only to find it still lying on the floor of the navigation deck. Instead she took out her sidearm, the B21 Silverwatch, which her sister had configured with dust knows what attachments.

Aiming the shotgun gauntlet in her right arm and drawing her Dawnbreak handcannon in her left, she took aim at their previous attacker whose amber eyes darted around the wreckage.

"LEAVE ME ALONE! I left you for good!" the girl screamed, which strangely wasn't directed at her or her sister.

"Hello?" Ruby asked, nervously which immediately attracted their captive's attention towards her.

"Stay back! I don't want to hurt you, he's going to make me try to-" replied the girl, whose exosuit finally faded to reveal that she wasn't actually wearing a bowtie but an incredibly enhanced jumpsuit with a white and black vest and collar that well accented her raven colored hair. She was a cat Faunus as was evident by the ears and her eyes but given by how sharply she was exhaling it seemed whatever was going on, it was probably due to her suit malfunctioning.

"Whoa, whoa slow down there kitty cat. Me and my sister just want to help you out."

"Yeah, we've found the problem with your suit, it's the fact that your hijack prevention modules were tampered with and luckily I can replace most of them with ones from Vale. I just need to find a fabricator and then we'll make sure you never have to deal with this again. Ok?"

"You don't understand what he'll do. He always finds a way. He'll track both of you down until he-"

"Who's he?" Yang asked, cracking her knuckles, her rage starting to simmer. She had some bad experiences with guys who tried to be too forward with her. Luckily a quick rearrangement of their egos and their bones seemed to do the trick.

"He's Adam Taurus." The girl replied, shakily.

"Sorry, the name doesn't ring a bell." Yang replied, perplexed.

" **That's because he's the best operative in the White Fang."**

* * *

**A/N: Oh, Weiss. What are we going to do without you needed to make new friends all the time. In all seriousness, this was a fun chapter to write and getting the team dynamics change mid-fight was a lot of fun.**

**As always review to let me know what all I could do better and as always Keep Moving Forward!**


	4. Recovery

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 2: Recovery**

* * *

"So, you're saying this guy Adam tried to hijack your combat rig and made you go crazy? That's awfully effed up," Yang asked.

"Yaaanng!"

"What?"

"Did you need to sound sooo…."

"Blunt?"

"Yeah blunt!"

"Rubes, she was trying to kill us." Yang explained, crossing her arms and looking towards the Faunus.

"No, Adam did not hijack my combat rig, he-" The Faunus began to explain before Ruby cut her off.

"Disabled your anti Grimm hijack module and also tampered with your suit to give you phantom visions?" Ruby saidl.

"How did you-" The Faunus asked, a little taken aback by Ruby's sudden explanation

"My sister's a wizard when it comes to combat technology. She can fix almost anything related to combat rigs." Yang said, as she sat down on the hood of Bumblebee, waiting for her sister to finish scanning their new companion. "You have a name?"

"Blake."

"Alright then Blake, my name's Yang and this is my sister Ruby, where are you from?"

"Mistral." Blake replied, as she eased up a little."Cool, me and my sister come from Patch, that little planetoid out in the Valean belt. We were heading to Vale when our ship crash landed due to some nasty Grimm. Luckily with our amazing skills, me and Ruby were able to clear them out and head for Vale on our own, using our hoverbike. Given how you and the princess seem to have also crashed your own ride to Vale, I'm pretty sure my sister and I would be willing to help you both get to Vale as well. Right Ruby?" Yang said, turning to her sister.

"Absolutely! Although I do think we should get your rig fixed up first and then head out, since… it's been seriously tampered with." Ruby said, in a cheery response.

"What do you need to fix it ?" Yang asked, as she looked between her sister and Blake, who seemed to be more or less reading the situation.

"I need a B class fabricator to make a Module Alteration Device since I kinda busted the last one on that charge mod on your arm… and also an Aura Lock System to make sure the aura remains contained as I alter the module."

"The last town we visited Ruby had a B class fabricator and as for the Aura Lock System, I think we have a spare one in Bumblebee, somewhere." Yang remembered.

"Yang, you remember what happened last time right?" Ruby asked, her face all scrunched up in worry.

"Ruby, I know it's dangerous but if we don't do it, we run the risk of Blakey here trying to kill us even if she doesn't want to." Yang said, gesturing to the Faunus who was now missing from where she was at.

"I'll go with you," said a voice from Yang's left, and somehow, Blake was right there, with a sword and gun at the ready in two of the many holsters in her sexy exosuit.

"Alright then, well that's settled. Ruby, you stay here and guard the princess, me and Blake will go for a little walk in one of the old towns." Yang said as she walked over to Ruby and gestured to the sleeping white haired girl.

Seeing her sister's face still contorted with worry, Yang moved over to her and gave her a motherly kiss on her forehead saying, "I promise you, I'll come back. Plus, I even got a partner to help me out! Even if she might turn against me."

"I heard that." Blake said, not looking amused in the slightest as she got on the back seat of Bumblebee.

"Well that's going to take some getting used to, see ya soon Ruby! Stay safe, I'll be back soon, hopefully with the things you need." Yang said, as she put on her sunglasses and entered the driver's seat of Bumblebee, waving to Ruby from the hoverbike.

"Stay safe, Yang," Ruby said as she took out her scythe and moved over towards their other companion.

"Ready for a ride, Kitty Cat?" Yang asked with a confident smirk, priming Bumblebee's thrusters.

"Try not to make us crash anywhere else." Blake replied, still in deadpan

"Ha ha, alright! Hold on tight!" Yang laughed along, before speeding off into the town, with her new companion.

* * *

Ruby was already starting to get impatient after just 15 minutes of Yang leaving. After all, it's not like she had anyone to talk to. Well, she did have the other new girl but she was still unconscious as far as Ruby knew, and even then she didn't really seem the most friendly but still it would be rude is she didn't check on the girl.

So, she went into the ship where the girl was resting and scanned her combat rig. It was unlike anything Ruby had even seen. Extremely well tinkered and fabricated clothing which integrated with the aura of the user but not in the way exosuits were skintight. In fact, it was almost as if the girl was wearing armor within her normal clothing. It was so cool!

She had to know more, so she ran her fingers down the fabric and scanned them to figure out how they integrated with aura. And oh! The scan revealed that the fiber was custom built, meaning it was probably one of a kind. It made the girl seem that much more special.

Upon inspecting the weapon, Ruby couldn't help but observe the very intricate nature of the weapon. Every single part of this weapon had an elaborate feature, whether it was controlling the size and thickness of the dust blade or simply choosing the dust type. Not one part took up unnecessary space and every detail either served to enhance or alter the weapon.

It was truly a weapon built for someone specialized in the specific style of combat that Ruby had seen when fighting both against and with the girl. However, her curiosity turned to fear when she heard the telltale click of a hammer being pulled back. She gulped and turned to see the white-haired girl behind her holding a revolver to her chest.

* * *

"And what do you think you're doing with my rapier?" Weiss demanded.

"I was just inspecting your weapons!" the girl replied, her panicked voice not helping offset Weiss's mood.

"So that you could tamper with them or sabotage them?" Weiss asked, callous in tone, hoping to catch the girl in a lie.

"Why wouldn't I have done that while you were sleeping? Your weapons and combat rig are very well made! I just really like going through them to see how they work!" The girl defended herself, confounding Weiss. She must have been lying, right?

"Why should I believe you? You literally attacked me when you entered my ship!" She replied.

"You shot my sister! How else was I supposed to react?!" said the girl, which finally made Weiss holster her revolver. She couldn't blame the girl for reacting in the way she did. If anyone had tried something with Winter, she would almost certainly have done the same.

Hanging her head down in shame, she lowered her voice and said "You're right. I'm sorry. Where is your sister?"

The girl then finally got up and moved towards Weiss a little more cautiously. Gesturing to the empty space around the desk she was lying on, she silently asked the redhead if she wanted to sit down.

The redhead obliged and answered her question. "My sister went out with your companion and left me here to take care of you. And before you ask, we figured out what happened to your companion!" she added quickly as Weiss nearly interjected upon mention of her shipmate.

"Her Anti Grimm hijack module was tampered with by someone. Luckily when my sister beat her, we managed to destroy all traces of the Grimm and now she's on our side!" The girl added, a little happier.

"Are you absolutely positive about that? If something goes wrong, your sister can be in more danger than she realizes." Weiss replied, still worried about her companion, given how quickly she turned against Weiss.

"Eh, at this point I'm pretty sure she has it under control."

"And what if she doesn't? You saw how dangerous she was." Weiss added, getting up quickly, ignoring the dazed feeling in her head.

"Wait! At least let me help you get some food." The girl said before quickly rushing off in a red blur. Within two seconds she was back with two boxes containing what appeared to be a blue colored block.

"What's this?" Weiss asked, as she gingerly held the box.

"Nutrition Blocks! We got a bunch of these from an abandoned compound we raided a week ago and they had all these amazing flavors. I'm eating a strawberry flavored one!" the girl said as she removed her block and scarfed it down at an inhuman speed. How uncivilized!

Looking away from the disgusting image, Weiss took out her own nutrition block. Its squishy exterior was making it seem extremely unappealing. Looking over to redhead who was still enjoying her strawberry flavored block, she gulped and took a bite out of her own.

It felt like eating jelly, only if it had a slight taste of blueberry, which had always been a more appealing food for Weiss in the privileged life she lived. But it could do little to offset the revolting feeling of being forced to eat a gelatinous product designed purely for providing nutrition.

Nearly gagging as she swallowed it, she asked her companion "How do you never get sick eating this?"

"Oh, I used to for the first few days, couldn't even get it down my stomach, it was so bad! But I got used to it eventually and now I even like them sometimes. At least the strawberry flavored ones. The veggie ones are pure poison! POISON!" she squealed, earning a laugh from Weiss.

Strangely, it felt good to laugh, given the absolute travesty of a situation she was in. Stranded with this child on a planet with her aura failing her, forced to stay at the mercy of her new companions. Also, the one person she thought she could trust turned out to nearly be the reason she was this way. Just peachy.

"So, what's your name?" asked the girl, with a light voice.

"My name is Weiss Schnee, what's yours?" Weiss answered with a cautious tone.

"Ruby Rose! It's nice to meet you Weiss! I mean besides the fact you tried to shoot me and my sister." The redhead rambled on.

Strangely, the girl didn't seem to use her last name like everyone else did. It also appeared she was quite socially awkward given her constant rambling.

"It's good to meet you too, Ruby. Although I must ask, what is a person like you doing out in the badlands of Vale? I would've taken you to be one of the tinkerer types who stayed in homes, tinkering with their craft." Weiss asked, her words chosen in the hopes to gather information above all else.

"Well I don't spend all my time tinkering! Above all I want to join the Hunters of Vale with my sister! I was hoping to find a team there but given how we just gained two more people, I think it would be great if we all joined together! Not that I'm trying to force you to do anything, it's just I think we can make a really good team!" Ruby replied.

Was she grateful to this girl who saved her life? Indeed, but joining a team with her, her loudmouth sister and potentially a loose cannon that could turn against them was the last thing on Weiss's mind.

"No, I don't think I will. Thank you for the offer nonetheless." Weiss replied, almost immediately regretting her tone once she realized what it had done to Ruby.

"Aw, oh well. I guess it was a little foolish to think you wanted to join, given how you were willing to head to Vale on a ship. At least we can help you get to Vale?" Ruby replied, her face filled with disappointment, which strangely tugged at Weiss's heartstrings in a very painful way. At least she was willing to oblige the girl's last wish.

"That would be extremely beneficial. Thank you for offering your help." Weiss replied, returning some of the light onto the young girl's face, which made Weiss feel a little less worse for crushing the girl's hopes.

"Always happy to provide it!" Ruby replied with an excited cheer, which quickly contorted into a face of deep thought.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, I'm just trying to figure out a sidecar that can fit all of us on Bumblebee, seeing as how that's our current mode of transport and we're trying to figure out how to make it compatible for four people without giving anything up on Bumblebee. Maybe the fabricator Yang's bringing can help." Ruby said, puzzling Weiss with what she was talking about.

"Yang?"

"Oh! Right you probably haven't been introduced to her yet! My sister's name is Yang Xiao Long, and she has that because her mom's different than mine! She went with Blake to go get the fabricator!"

"Blake?" she asked.

"She's the Faunus you came with!" Ruby replied, shocking Weiss.

' _A Faunus?'_ She thought.

Weiss came to this planet with a Faunus. A Faunus came to _her ship_ and nearly killed her. And now that exact same Faunus was running scot free with one of the two people responsible for her survival.

Suddenly, the dismissive tone, the cynical attitude all made sense. Why wouldn't it? She was a Faunus. One of the people responsible for her miserable childhood at the mercy of her father. She still recalled all the days he found out about the White Fang destroying his mining ships, trashing his outposts. And of course, who else to take out his frustrations on than Weiss?

Her existence had been miserable, and that was because of the Faunus.

Now it was settled, she most certainly wasn't going to join Ruby's team, not as long as a Faunus remained on it.

"Uhm, Weiss you okay?" Ruby asked, looking at her.

"I'm fine." She lied, hiding her inner rage by twirling the ring around her left hand.

Suddenly, she heard a loud clanging sound however coming from the destroyed munitions deck.

"Did you hear that?" Ruby said, as she took out her weapon and aimed at the rubble.

"Did I hear it? Of course, I heard it! I'm not deaf!" she replied, as she took her rapier and revolver and aimed at the destroyed rubble.

With a loud roar, the deck exploded, forcing Weiss to roll to avoid the piece of scrap heading towards her head. But her haste led to her walking right into the path of the Grimm's cannon which fired a shot right at Weiss. Frozen in shock, she watched as the shell, armed with electric dust came towards her.

But at the last moment, she only saw a red blur as she was abruptly picked up and moved outside the ship.

When her vision returned to her, she was feeling slightly dazed but was able to notice Ruby was still holding her, in the bridal position.

"Get off me!" she said, as she jumped away from Ruby.

"Sorry, it was the only way to get you to move, but we have far more pressing matters. Ruby said, before being interrupted by a cannon shot blowing a whole through the ship allowing the Grimm to see them. "That Marauder's got electric dust in its cannon, maybe we can use it?"

"If you can somehow trigger an electric cascade with the Dust, we may stand a chance." Weiss explained, creating a path to her target using her glyphs.

Seeing the other girl speed away, Weiss raised her revolver and prepared herself for another battle.

* * *

Blake wasn't exactly sure what to make of her new companions. Not making things easier was the fact that their meeting began by her trying to kill both of them and the Schnee girl. Of course, she had no idea that she would even go to those extremes since learning about the tampering with her exosuit was something that Ruby had to tell her.

Despite that violent altercation, both girls were at the very least willing to help Blake, which immediately made her suspicious of the two of them. She knew that while some were genuinely willing to help others, she was also aware that many would rather use them to further their own control. So far it seemed the girls were of the former, but she had firsthand experience of those who wore masks to hide the true lengths of their control.

Cautiously, she chose to separate the girls and deal with both of them separately. Fortunately, the blonde was willing to accept taking Blake along with her to find the fabricator needed to restore Blake's combat rig. Assuming Yang didn't crash given the speeds she was travelling.

Luckily, by some degree of both skill and luck, Yang managed to reach the demolished town. The town was abandoned but strangely not teeming with Grimm. As both she and Yang dismounted from Bumblebee, Blake looked around the destroyed colony. Bodies of Grimm and destroyed parts still lay on the ground, indicating the existence of a tussle before they had arrived.

"You and your sister's handiwork?" Blake asked, as she looked down and saw the mangled head of an Alpha Beowolf.

"Yeah, more specifically Ruby's, since god that girl can swing a scythe! Took out an Alpha Beowolf by literally ramming the scythe blade through the beast's head! And she calls me the brutal one!" Yang replied, her tone over exaggerating at certain points.

Surprisingly hearing about the bond, the sisters shared was strangely comforting for Blake and it even made her chuckle lightly upon hearing Yang describe her sister's many antics. She couldn't help but admire the bravery of these sisters to try and make it across the badlands of Vale on a hoverbike with only each other for support. That combined with their desire to help, easily made the two of them some of the most unique people Blake had seen in a long time.

Of course, now it was time to see whether or not that uniqueness was masking something worse or not.

Entering a tinkerer's cabin, they entered into the darkness of the cabin, using Yang's scroll to illuminate the darkness. After a good minute of searching the came across a large dusty metallic box with a scanner at the top and an opening.

"Looks like a fabricator alright! Let's see if it's the B class one Ruby wanted." Yang said as she flashed the light over the box, to find that it indeed was a B class fabricator. But that wasn't the only thing she found, as using her night vision, Blake was also able to find a threat in the form of a Grimm sulfur unit. Taking out her Ghost Talon pistol, Blake without hesitation shot out into the darkness.

As she watched those red eyes fade to black, she very distinctly made out Yang saying, "Get down Blake!" Immediately ducking, she saw a punch go over her and Yang's shotgun arm fire. With a horrible crack she heard a soft thud behind her and after being.

"Are you okay?" Yang asked, her normally lilac eyes now flashing a deep crimson. "A Hydra head came from behind and tried to get you."

"I am, thanks for the assist." Blake said, as she got up, feeling a little safer around the blonde.

"No worries, now let's get this thing out of here." Yang picked up the Fabricator and took it out of the cabin. Blake however didn't leave as she heard another cracking sound coming from where Yang had taken the device. Using her night vision, she watched in horror as hundreds of Sulfur Fish combined with destroyed Grimm heads to form a Hydra Grimm in front of her.

Immediately using her semblance in horror, Blake managed to escape from the cabin.

"Yang! There's a Hydra Grimm inside!" Blake yelled out, grabbing the blonde's attention who immediately dropped her fabricator and moved towards Blake, aiming her gauntlet above her.

Jumping to the side, Blake narrowly dodged one of the Hydra's heads attempting to bite down on her. With a loud crack, Blake turned and found the head of the Hydra destroyed by a shot from Yang's arm.

Taking out her hardlight sheath, she jumped up and slashed at one of the beast's four necks. Jumping off the beast's neck, she shot it thrice before rolling towards Yang.

**Reloading both her pistols, Blake prepared herself for yet another fight, but this time with a little more confidence in her and her partner's abilities.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy writing this story is fun! It's nice a change of pace from fantasy after all and has given me some extremely cool ideas in my head. As always I hope you enjoy this chapter and continue to enjoy this story. I shall be eagerly awaiting your feedback.
> 
> Keep Moving forward!


	5. Seedlings

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 3: Seedlings**

* * *

Aiming her gauntlets at the beast's heads, Yang fired, staggering the beast and grabbing its attention. Just what she wanted, as it allowed Blake to sneak up on it from behind. Now all she had to do was make sure that its attention remained on her. She ducked out of cover, bringing out Dawnbreak and fired three electric rounds, disabling some of the hydra's weapon systems but not all of them, as was evident by the set of cluster grenades sent her way. Firing her gauntlets again, Yang jumped back, avoiding the cluster and backflipping onto the roof of a destroyed cabin.

Charging up the charge mod on her gauntlet, she took aim and fired again, this time striking its chest, stunning it. The hydra howled in agony before it began to charge up it's weapons, pointing all of them at Yang. _'Anytime now Blake,'_ Yang thought, as she jumped down from the roof of the cabin, taking a destroyed piece of metal and throwing at the hydra, which ended up getting destroyed as it was thrown under the combined volley of bullets, burst lasers and a couple of hydra missiles.

Raising its giant heads high, Yang watched as it attempted to charge up another volley of attacks. But before it could even shoot a single shot, it let out a scream of agony and dipped it's head to the floor, revealing Blake. The Faunus had managed to sneak up on the Hydra and as such was able to cripple it with her hardlight sheath. Rushing in to assist her, Yang gave herself an extra boost of momentum using her gauntlets and slammed one of the beast's heads into the ground. Flipping unto the Hydra's back, she was taken aback when the beast suddenly reared it's back, sending Blake to the floor.

Holding on for dear life, Yang used the hooks on her metallic arm to maintain her grip and turning her gauntlets into shotguns, fired off blindly into the beast, landing shots all over the beasts heads and back and even breaking through the armor plating, revealing a piece of its black flesh. But as she attempted to deliver a final blow using Dawnbreak, Yang was caught by a surprise as one of the heads attempted to bite Yang, latching onto her metallic arm.

Surging with rage, Yang swiftly used Dawnbreak and immediately broke out of its clutches with a shot straight to the beast's sensors, disabling them for good. But in her haste, she forgot to take into account the other head. As she was about to punch the Hydra into oblivion, one of its heads struck her across the face and sent her into the wall of a building. As her vision faded, she could barely make out Blake screaming her name.

* * *

Jumping off the metallic pipes, Ruby knew better than anyone that she held the best chance against this 3-legged monstrosity. It's slow movements, combined with its equally slow guns meant that as long as she dodged its attacks, her and Weiss would be just fine. All she had to do was make sure it didn't catch Weiss with its sensors.

Speaking of which, she should probably do something about those before her partner ended up on the beast's targeting sensors. Aiming at the Marauder's head, Ruby let loose an incendiary round which ended up burning it through the back of its head.

The beast turned and with its metallic arm, extended it, attempting to catch Ruby in its clutches. Before it even reached a foot from Ruby's location, its arm was frozen by an expert shot from Weiss, who managed to take cover before a railgun nearly destroyed the cover over her. Rushing forwards using her semblance, Ruby lashed out against the creature, slashing its arm off before shooting it with her sniper, using the recoil of the weapon to put some distance between her and the Marauder.

Landing on the floor, she rolled and took out her backup pistol and fired electric rounds into the beast's legs, slowing it down. Ruby rushed forward, seeing an opportunity to finish the fight, only faintly hearing Weiss say "Stop! You're going to-" before attempting to take off the Marauder's head, only to find herself stuck in a trap as a shoulder mounted gun, shot her thrice, sending her to the floor.

As she fell, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, the beast's railgun primed and aimed at her head, ready to blast her into oblivion. Right as the shot came however, she noticed a wall of ice suddenly emerge from the floor in front her, blocking the hit.

* * *

Firing with both her pistols, Blake managed to land two lucky shots against the hydra, distracting the attention of two of its heads away from Yang. Looking over to the blonde laying on the floor clutching her head, Blake began firing her pistols more rapidly, hoping to grab the attention of the remaining heads. Luckily for her, her aim today was good and with a few more strikes to the beast's sensors and exposed neck, Blake attracted its full attention.

Of course, that didn't mean she had succeeded in any way. In fact, the hardest part of her plan was going to begin now. Taking cover behind a destroyed statue, Blake sent out her Shadow Clone in one direction, distracting the Hydra. Jumping from cover to cover, Blake used her grappling hook in her metallic blade to slide into what appeared to be a warehouse.

Hearing a roar from behind her, Blake knew she had gained the beast's ire. The gunfire that followed only reinforced that. Using her semblance again, Blake used this Shadow Clone to give her one last boost of momentum before she landed on the roof of the warehouse, entering through a broken part of the ceiling. Swiftly landing without a sound, Blake quickly ran over her options.

She could try to fight the beast outright which was the equivalent of a death wish. She would be overwhelmed immediately by the beast's heads, and that was assuming it didn't manage to strike her down with the weapons attached to its feet and claws. She could try to sneak up on it and disable it. It was Gambol Shroud's original purpose after all, but doing so would put Yang in danger of being killed again and after seeing how far she was willing to go to protect Blake, the thought of letting her die simply didn't sit well with her.

Which left only one option. Her scroll, which had been linked to the scanner in her suit, had revealed that there were a series of Dust crystals in a series of crates. Rock, Ice and Fire. Perfect for what she was planning against the Hydra.

Collecting the Dust and jumping back onto the roof, Blake armed Fire Dust into her suit, causing its power systems and the heads-up display on her sunglasses to turn orange. Technically, what she had in mind was only possible in theory, and without any prior testing, there was no guarantee if this would even work.

Firing incendiary rounds from Gambol Shroud's two pistols, Blake managed to set fire to the Hydra's body and began to melt off some of the protective plating on its chest. Given how quickly it was starting to give way, Blake was lucky that her target was a very young Grimm. As the Grimm turned to face her, Blake ran straight at it from the roof and jumped towards it.

At the last second, she used her semblance and jumped off one of her Shadow Clones, allowing her to fall and roll back towards her injured ally; her clone exploded right in Grimm's face, stunning it. Running towards Yang, Blake immediately took out an aura syringe she had pawned in the warehouse and took it out. Before she set herself down to check up on Yang, Blake sent out another one of her Shadow Clones exhausting all the Fire Dust she had taken and let it again explode on the Grimm, buying some more time for the Faunus.

Using the scanners in her omni scroll, she rapidly checked Yang's vitals and found that thankfully she was still breathing, and her heart rate was normal. Hearing a groan and noticing Yang move slightly, Blake immediately turned her around and helped her up on her arm, asking "Yang? Are you okay?"

"Feel like I just got slammed into a jackhammer… other than that, I'm alright. Where's the Grimm?" Yang replied.

"Take it easy, your aura's at barely 20%. We need to get out of here!" She said to the blonde, who shook her head.

"No Blake. We need to fight. If we don't put that thing down right here, right now, it will be back, and it will keep on hunting us down. These things won't give up until you destroy them and that's what I'm going to do. If you want to leave, suit yourself but I'm not leaving this thing to hunt down any of us." She replied, her eyes turning crimson as she armed her shotgun gauntlets.

"Wait!" Blake replied to the blonde making her stop. "I have a plan! Please, don't just rush in headstrong, that's exactly what it wants."

"It hasn't stopped me from kicking these things's asses since I started." She replied, continuing forward.

"Maybe, but all those Grimm you fought; I can guarantee are not like these ones. These things can't be fought alone. Please, Yang. Please."

Letting out a sigh, Yang slumped over her shoulders and asked, "What's your plan?"

"Take a look at that thing. It's already half beaten down. In fact, I'm willing to wager that you can easily destroy these things with a couple of punches or some shotgun shells."

"Or maybe just one, my semblance does allow me to enhance my power based on how much damage I take. I think I can easily take this thing down if I can get a crack at its weak spot."

"The thing is, we need to get close to it, so I'm going to use my semblance and distract it as long as I can. You try to find an opening and strike its underbelly so that we can make full use of its weakness."

"How do you know so much about hunting these things down?" asked Yang, sending Blake into a slight panic. Her time in the White Fang had given her many skills and one of them happened to be how to destroy Grimm like the hydra. Of course, as far as they knew she was a victim of the White Fang, not a former member. Maybe she could keep that a secret for a little longer.

"Now's not the time Yang," she replied urgently as she used her semblance again to gain a better vantage point at the hydra, which was roaring in agony. And for good reason, as Blake's semblance had destroyed a lot of the armor that was making its underbelly so hard to reach. At this rate, all she really needed to do was distract it with her clones for just a few seconds to give Yang a clear shot to the Grimm.

Arming the Ice Dust into her exosuit, Blake jumped down from her perch, shooting ice rounds from both her pistols. The impact froze more and more of the beast's legs and also managed to create some on its necks, attracting the beast's attention to Blake. Zigzagging towards the Grimm, she used Rock Dust immediately as she spotted one of the Grimm's many attacks coming from the guns on its shoulders and arms.

The rock copy managed to take most of the impact, before allowing Blake to swiftly make her way to the Beast's side. Activating her hardlight sheath, Blake ran her sword right through the beast's neck and shoulder, cutting off one of its arms. Using her semblance again, she managed to get one of the beast's legs stuck in it. Running over the beast's back she slashed relentlessly, cutting through it's armor like paper before deactivating the hardlight sheath upon realizing it was out of energy.

One of the Grimm's arms turned and attempted to go for her shoulder but this time, Blake was ready. Using her semblance one last time, Blake reappeared at the top of the beast's head and ran her sword down the beast's long neck, the metallic blade creating sparks against the metal, before finding flesh. Plunging her sword deeper into it, Blake fired two more rounds into the opening, before jumping off the beast with her sword.

Turning her metallic sword into a grappling hook, Blake threw the sword to Yang. Noticing a slight tug on the string, Blake pulled as hard as she could, pulling the Hydra's attention away from her to the blonde, who came charging in. Her hair glowing like embers of a flame, Blake watched as the beast took the full force of an extremely pissed off blonde.

Seeing the beast crumble from the inside, she watched as Yang aimed her shotgun and handcannon, taking off all of its heads except the last one. With the beast crippled and unable to make a move against either of them, all that was left for Blake to do was to finish it.

And she did it with ease.

* * *

Weiss didn't understand why she was stuck with a partner who just so happened to think the best strategy for any situation was to rush in blindly and hope for the best. Using her hold glyph, Weiss focused all her energy on stopping the Marauder from firing its railgun. Raising her revolver to fire, she shot at the Marauder's shoulder mounted gun, stopping it from firing.

Thankfully by this time, the redhead finally snapped out of her shock and used her scythe to strike against the beast's legs, cutting off one before using her semblance in her combat rig and speeding off… carrying Weiss.

"What are you doing?" Weiss asked, as the redhead sped up leaving holographic petals which disintegrated a few seconds after they came. "I could have destroyed that thing!"

"No, you couldn't have the time you had… snowflake, you left yourself exposed to its railgun… if I hadn't moved you, you would've been shot." The redhead puther hands on her knees and breathed rapidly as the two of them hid behind a wall.

"But how? I had that thing's railgun stuck in my glyph."

"The Marauder had already formulated a plan to shoot you and was charged up from before. Even if you managed to land a shot to one of its sensors, it would have still managed to shoot you down."

"How do you know about all this?" Weiss asked, shocked at how Ruby seemed to know everything about the Grimm but still refused to make a coordinated effort to attack.

"Uhhhh, I read a lot of books about it on the CCT network? Also, because me and Yang fought these things before and I know from personal experience just how quickly those things can fire." Ruby replied, taking off a small piece of her dress to show Weiss a scar on her chest letting her come to the conclusion that she got lucky.

Had she been on her own, she would've most certainly, in her hubris, attempted to shoot down the Marauder with her revolver Eispunkt. Which would've left herself open to a counterattack which Weiss which in her weakened state might have actually crippled her.

Had Ruby not been there, Weiss might not have survived. Thinking back, she could only recall either Winter or Klein who ever showed her that kind of mercy.

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine! Almost no one even knows about this sort of stuff! I guess you got lucky I was there to help you out."

"Thank you, but how are we going to deal with this Marauder, then. If shooting's not an option, then how else are we supposed to take it down?" Weiss asked, hoping Ruby at least had some idea for talking this thing down.

"I was going to use my scythe to cut it up, and maybe buy you a little bit more time to shoot down the gun mounted on its shoulder, but I guess that's already taken care of. Unless it picks up another gun component from your ship, so I would say I go ahead and distract it while you try to line up a clear shot?" Ruby replied, which made Weiss ponder just how far this girl was willing to go to put herself on the line for someone else.

"Are you sure, you'll be okay?" Weiss asked, concern seeping into her voice.

"Of course! My semblance is too fast for these Grimm things to scan and the petals I leave behind can confuse its scanners! It's the perfect tool against the Grimm! And also, I do this all the time with Yang! So don't worry about me Weiss, just make sure you get a clear shot on the Marauder."

"Where?" Weiss asked, reloading her revolver, taking out the Burn Dust pouch in her coat and reloading her bullets with Burn Dust.

"The railgun. I'll take out the legs and then you and me can go for the finisher together!" Ruby replied, with glee and excitement of a child.

"I don't think there's something called a finisher, but at least it's better than just running in headlong without a plan." Weiss replied as she heard a shot ring out and take out a section of the wall.

Aiming her revolver at the beast's legs, she quickly shifted her aim to the railgun and...

*BANG*

The shot rang out, slamming against the railgun, dropping to the floor. Going in for another shot, Weiss shot the Marauder's grip on the railgun before shooting it once in the chest and ducking behind another set of destroyed cover.

The Marauder let out a cry of rage as it attempted to move towards Weiss, only for it to hear a loud slash, as Ruby came through with her side of the plan, and in one clean stroke, managed to cut off all three legs of the Marauder, leaving it on the floor, screaming in rage. It tried to break the ice surrounding it's shoulder mount but its efforts were met by a quick shot from Ruby who, from out of nowhere, pulled out a pistol, destroying it's shoulder gun.

Tilting her head towards Weiss, she pointed her gun at the beast's head. Seeing the gesture as a request to kill the Grimm with a combined shot, Weiss obliged and fired her revolver at the same time as Ruby, finishing the Marauder for good.

Before she could even holster her weapon again, Weiss felt her vision start to get blurry. Knees shaking and body shivering, Weiss fell to her knees, clutching her stomach as pain racked all over her body.

Falling to the floor, the last thing she saw were pools of silver looking to her with shock and worry as she was lifted up.

* * *

**A/N: Huge shoutout to my beta readers TimeX13, 0neWhoWanders and Riggy_Minus for all their constant support on this story. Sadly this probably marks the last upload for this month for this story as I need to focus on my exams. However, I do hope to keep you all entertained with this story and can very safely say that I am super excited for you all to see the next few chapters.**

**As always let me know about your feedback as it always helps keep me going and Keep Moving Forward!**


	6. Bonding

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 4: Bonding**

* * *

Yang hadn't been having the best afternoon. Besides having to deal with a Hydra Grimm, nearly dislocating her human arm and also having to deal with a splitting headache, she had also found out her robotic arm's modification was starting to wear out. At least they managed to get the fabricator that Ruby needed and were able to restock on some supplies and resupply their medkit… after using some of the medical supplies to stop the pain.

Luckily, Blake had been watching out for her. Had it not been for her presence, she would have almost certainly tried to rush in headstrong to strike down that stupid Hydra with a nearly dislocated arm. But seriously, the girl had moves. All it took was just a few charges of Rock and Ice Dust, and she had the Grimm so fixated on her that it had no time to react to Yang.

Hell, she would've wagered that if Blake had a little more dust, she could've easily taken down the Hydra Grimm all by herself, even if she swore that Yang was the only reason they were able to take it down. Maybe once they got back to the ship, she could take some time off to rest and relax, perhaps. Maybe get to know her a little better? After all, it wasn't like she held anything against the Faunus, and Blake was rather interesting to say the least.

But all attention that Yang had in her mind was automatically diverted once she found a call coming from Ruby on her scroll. Bumblebee automatically pulled up an interface, courtesy of her scroll being connected to her bike, and soon Yang was in direct comms with Ruby.

"Hey Rubes! Is everything okay?"

"No! Weiss is down, her aura's failing again! Please tell me you were able to resupply the medkits?!" Ruby's voice rang over, frantic.

"Yeah I got them stocked up. I'm headed your way right now! What happened? Who's Weiss?" Yang asked.

"Grimm attacked, me and Weiss killed it… but then she collapsed… her aura's fading fast!" Ruby replied in a panic, making Yang increase Bumblebee's speed.

"Just keep her in a safe place and don't try to move her at all costs, I'm rushing over to you. Just hold on!" Yang said.

"What's wrong?" Blake asked.

"Weiss's aura still hasn't adapted to Vale's climate If we don't stabilize it soon, she's going to end up with something permanent!" She replied, putting on her goggles. "Think you can chart a path for us to take?"

"Of course," Blake replied, giving Yang a sense of relief as she also updated the scroll permissions in Bumblebee to extend to Blake's scroll… which had been active in the Mistralian and Atlesian subsystems? Then again, they found Blake aboard the ship of a stuck-up princess from Atlas so maybe things weren't as complicated as they seemed.

Speeding through the coarse dirt of the badlands, Yang looked towards the holoscreen on Bumblebee, waiting for Blake to finalize planning out a suitable route for them to take towards Ruby.

"I assume the red dot is Ruby and the yellow dot is us?" Blake asked from behind her.

"Yeah, do you see any good options?" she asked.

"Not yet… wait, there's a canyon to our left. It looks like it's going to give us a direct route to Ruby's location if we can get to it" Blake replied. Letting out a sigh of relief as Yang looked to the holoscreen.

The path would take her a little longer than 10 minutes, which given the added stress of the setting sun, was probably the best course of action she could take. Grimm activity however seemed to be a little more than nominal, but that was the price of faster travel.

Putting the pedal to the metal, Yang went ahead and activated the ship's autopilot to follow the route marked out. She was almost certain a couple of Grimm Surveyor Drones would come out in the hopes of taking them down.

And lo and behold there they came, their T shaped visors looking to them menacingly. Taking out Dawnbreak, Yang quickly fired out two shots, downing two more. Her partner did the same, using both her pistols to shoot down three more before the remaining caught up to all of them.

As she attempted to shoot down another group she was instead surprised to find the drones creating shields to block her. Deciding she was having none of that, she used her gauntlets to boost over them and take out the Grimm creating the shield. Upon landing, she quickly shot out the 2 drones forming the shield.

Turning her attention to the Grimm at her feet, Yang tried to punch out the drones but was quickly met with a piston to her face and 3 shots to her arm, which she blocked. She only realized her mistake in not taking out the floor beneath her when she almost fell to the ground as her platform's began to shake and gave way.

Suddenly finding herself holding on for dear life under the Grimm, she watched as circuits rearranged, metal broke apart and recombined and weapons turned and twisted to form a railgun pointed at her face. The Grimm drones had fused together, and their new form had a much better chance of actually taking down Bumblebee.

Grabbing onto the sides of the Grimm, armed her shotgun gauntlets and quickly shot down the two stun guns that came up to try to knock her off, before getting atop the Grimm Surveyor and ripping a hole through its central wiring. Pulling out the wires with one sweeping motion, Yang disabled the Grimm and jumped off them and onto Bumblebee.

Hearing a loud bang and more metallic parts fall to the floor, gave Yang the sense of satisfaction as she knew she had killed two birds with one stone. As she landed back on Bumblebee, the entire hovercraft shook with her weight before stabilizing to a normal height.

Not even getting a chance to recover, Yang quickly found herself struck in the back and sent off her bike. Grabbing onto the back handles of Bumblebee, Yang held on for dear life as she slowly tried to pull herself back up to her bike.

Luckily for Yang, Blake was a pretty good shot and she quickly was able to stun the surveyor that nearly killed Yang with some ridiculously well placed shots. Finally getting back up, she started clearing out the surveyors with her weapons.

"How did you _do_ that?" Yang asked, as she jump-kicked the surveyor drone and shot down another few drones that had missed their stun lasers with her pistol.

"I found a modification off the Hydra Grimm for my pistols," Blake explained as she shot down two more drones. "It helps me find their weak spots. I can't hold it forever though."

' _Damn, she's not just pretty, she also knows how to handle tech. She might be worth having when me and Rubes get to Beacon_ _,_ _'_ Yang thought as she downed three more drones with her shotguns.

After clearing out all the immediate targets, Yang jumped back onto the main seat and checked up on the flight path. So far so good although there were still a whole bunch of Grimm to take down!

Not that she had anything to complain about though. After all, she still had her semblance to burn.

* * *

Keeping calm under stressful situations wasn't exactly Ruby's best trait, in fact she was kinda terrible at it but what else was she supposed to do?! She was supposed to be a huntress, not a medic!

' _Okay, calm down Ruby, calm down. You can do this; you can totally figure this out! Just believe in yourself_ _,_ _'_ she thought, breathing rapidly.

After calming herself down to some extent, Ruby activated the bioscanner on her scroll and immediately moved it across Weiss's unconscious body. The girl was shivering and was starting to toss and turn uncomfortably in the sleeping bag, Ruby had moved her to.

The results of her scan told Ruby that Weiss was suffering from a fever and a pretty bad one at that. Her temperature was rising rapidly and given how badly Weiss was shivering, she wasn't doing so well. there was one solution that Ruby was somewhat sure would work but that involved a little bit of hacking on Ruby's part.

All she needed to do was to make sure that the suit didn't try to oppose the shift in temperature.

Scanning Weiss's combat suit, Ruby quickly found a series of Dust Pouches and found that they were linked to the central systems of the combat rig. The only thing she needed to find now was Weiss's scroll. After searching through the pockets in her coat, Ruby eventually found it as well.

Setting it down next to the sleeping bag, Ruby scrambled towards the ship's storage room and began to search for some Ice Dust. Given how much Dust was in this ship, she was pretty sure that some Ice Dust wouldn't be too hard to find. And lo and behold there it was. An entire crate of Ice Dust! Grabbing as much dust as she could, Ruby ran back to her sleeping companion.

Shivering as she ran back, Ruby contemplated using her semblance but decided against it knowing how reactive her semblance was with some types of Dust. She certainly didn't want to find out if her semblance just so happened to also be compatible with ice.

Upon reaching her sleeping ally, Ruby immediately took up Weiss's scroll and after using the hacking module in her own suit, got to work on gaining access to the temperature systems of Weiss's suit.

' _Alright, first attempt. brrr... it's freezing out here!_ _D_ _arn It! Alright second attempt! You can do this Ruby!"_ she thought to herself as she tried to hack into Weiss's suit. _'Almost got it… almost… Done!'_

' _Now let's disable the temperature reduction countermeasures and set the standard suit temperature._ _Don't want this thing to reject the Dust._ _How on earth does a piece of clothing manage its own temperature? Does it have some weird fibers or something?'_ she thought as she adjusted the setting of the suit, granting her knowledge of its name as well.

' _Myrtenaster? Such a cool name! No wonder it fits Weiss so well!'_ Ruby thought _'It's also really pretty. Makes sense for such a pretty girl.'_

Stopping herself from making further comments on Myrtenaster, Ruby quickly began to place the Ice Dust inside the Dust pouches between Weiss's suit and sure enough the suit didn't appear to reject the Dust.

Reopening Myrtenaster's systems on her scroll, Ruby let out a fist pump and whooped when she began to see the suit's temperature begin to fall back down to normal. It worked! Ruby had finally been able to cure someone without Yang's help. Her sister would've been proud.

As she got up from the unconscious heiress, Ruby felt an odd tug at her cloak. Turning around, she found that Weiss was unconsciously clutching it. Seeing Weiss's cold hands desperately hold on to Ruby's cloak for warmth immediately made Ruby remove the straps of her cloak and take it off.

Wrapping up Weiss with her cloak, she let out a sigh of relief as the girl finally relaxed herself and stopped shivering. Putting her hand over her forehead also revealed to Ruby that Weiss's temperature wasn't too high. As she watched the evening sun fall below the horizon, she couldn't help but feel that somehow, somewhere, her and Yang would be okay.

But as soon as the sun set, her joy and contentment turned to worry. Hearing the unnatural sound of thunder booming off in the distance, she watched in horror as an Ion Storm began to develop, impairing her vision and was now approaching her.

Any electronics Ruby had were now in danger of being electrocuted by the Ion Storm. she would have to disable most of her suit to prevent electrocution. But what about Weiss? Shuddering upon thinking what the Ion Storm might end up doing to Weiss if it struck her, Ruby quickly gathered Weiss and rushed back into the ship.

It might've meant putting herself in a situation where the Grimm could easily swarm her, but that was still better than sitting around in the open, waiting for the storm to beat down on her and her partner.

On the plus side, Ruby was looking forward to kicking some more Grimm butt.

* * *

"What the hell is that?!" Blake exclaimed, looking up at the mechanical monstrosity staring into her soul with its visor.

All she could describe it as was an oversized drone in at T-shape, with shoulder guards and a red visor in its chest. It had guns protruding out of it's shoulders and had some embedded in its chest. But the most threatening thing about the Grimm was how quickly it was zipping around her and Yang, ominously observing.

"Beats me, I haven't seen this type of Grimm before." Came the reply.

"Why isn't it attacking us?"

"I dunno, it might be trying to send us a message. But don't put your guard down Blake, these things can go from perfectly neutral to incredibly hostile at the drop of a hat."

As Yang said those words, the red visor changed. Now instead of extending over the chest, it became a red sphere instead which was also covered by another layer of plating. Then the chest guns took up positions to the sides of its body and the head? The head shifted into a cannon which immediately fired.

Swerving to the right, Blake was nearly thrown off by Yang, who barely dodged the lasers that fired from the head. Holding on for dear life, Blake threw her grappling hook onto the Grimm, catching it.

"Distract that thing as long as you can. I'll see if I can do anything to disable some of its weapons."

"Sounds like a plan Blake, be careful though. We don't know anything about its defenses." Yang replied, firing a charged shot from her robotic arm, stunning the Grimm.

Pulling as hard as she could, Blake quickly grappled her way over the Grimm. Dodging shots sent at her from the Grimm's weapons using a Shadow Decoy, Blake plunged her hardlight sheath into the beast's chest.

Pulling it out of the beast and then using both swords in conjunction, Blake slashed against the Grimm's weapons, cutting off two before the others were able to lock up inside the Grimm. Seeing the weapons sink back inside the Grimm, she pondered why the Grimm would choose to leave itself vulnerable. she continued slashing the Grimm, taking off one of the cannons on its head and making amberlight , the Grimm equivalent of blood, spew from a cut on its neck.

Before she could run her hardlight sheath through the Grimm's neck, Blake noticed an ionic smell in the air. Recognizing it as the sign of an electrical discharge, Blake frantically used her semblance.

But it was too late. the pulse reached her suit and pain shot through her body.

"ARGHHHHH!" she screamed out, too stunned to do anything but fall to the floor.

"BLAKE!" she heard Yang scream out.

Before she hit the floor, she felt a sharp tug on her back and was swiftly pulled into the backseat of Bumblebee. Blinking rapidly, her amber eyes met Yang's enraged crimson.

"Are. You. Okay?" She asked, her voice injected with steel.

"M-Mostly."

"Sit back, I'll take it from here." Yang replied, as she jumped right at the Grimm with both her gauntlets, screaming in rage as Blake got to see for herself just how enraged Yang could get.

Watching on, she saw the Grimm get pummeled into a wall, making it lose its protective covering on it's weapons and also had two of its guns ripped off and two more shot off by Yang's blind fury. One of the guns turned to strike Yang and even landed a shot to her chest but Yang wasn't being stopped today and she kept pummeling into the beast, causing craters to form on the Grimm's chest.

Seeing it attempt to lock itself up, Blake called out to Yang, warning her to get off the Grimm, knowing an EMP was about to strike. Hearing her, Yang again used her gauntlets and shot both into the Grimm causing amberlight to pour out of its gaping wounds. Landing at the hood of Bumblebee, which was somehow still on course, Yang took out her handcannon and shot at the laser cannon in the beast's head, causing it to misfire and cause further damage to the Grimm.

After letting the EMP go off, Yang resumed her assault, this time focusing all her attention to the left side which had been quite horrendously damaged by both Blake and Yang's efforts. Ripping into the shoulder pad of the Grimm, Blake watched as Yang simply pulled out one of the beast's power cores, which contained the power source for its weaponry.

She watched in anticipation as she expected Yang to kill it for good, only to see a hammer drive itself into her back making her let out a pained gasp and then clutched her in a trap.

Her expression quickly turned to horror, as another needle came out from the Grimm's shoulder this time aimed at Yang's jugular.

Taking out both her pistols, she disabled the smart aiming module and emptied as much ammo as she could into the beast's clutch. Her efforts did manage to get the Grimm to retract its needle.

"YANG! GRAB ON!" Blake shouted as she threw her grapple towards the blonde who caught it and after firing a charged shot into the Grimm. Spotting the beast, free Yang from it's clutches, she pulled as hard as she could and was able to pull Yang back up to Bumblebee with some assistance from the blonde's shotguns.

"We're ending this right now!," Yang said, as she flipped a set of switches activating the afterburner on Bumblebee, and making Blake hold on to her seat for dear life.

"Wait Yang, we're headed straight for the GRIMM!" Blake exclaimed, as she realized Yang's intention was to ram the Grimm with her hoverbike.

 **Ducking her head into the seat, she waited for the impact and hoped that Yang's recklessness wouldn't sp** **e** **ll their doom**.

* * *

**A/N: Quick Note, this is the last update for this story until 10th of October. After that day I shall be back to uploading this story regularly due to exams. As always, a huge shoutout to 0neWhoWanders for betaing this story. Their assistance has been paramount in making this story as good as it is.**


	7. Humbled

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 5: Humbled**

* * *

After leaving nothing but scrap metal and amberlight on the floor of the ship, Ruby eagerly awaited the next group of electric Grimm that would come her way. Her scythe wasn't exactly the best tool in this confined space and while the navigation deck certainly allowed her to utilize her weapon to her fullest potential, she knew if she was moved away from it, she was going to be outmatched quickly.

All she was hoping for was Yang to come back soon with the fabricator and Blake. After the hectic fight she had in trying to fight that Marauder, just hearing from her sister proved to be a much-needed reassurance. Life was uncertain in these badlands and until they could reach Vale, Ruby's only real solace lay with her sister.

Despite her fears about Yang going without her, she was nonetheless a little bit at ease with the fact that she wasn't going alone and given by how both of them didn't seem to mind each other while Yang was on Bumblebee, she was sure that Blake was someone she could trust.

T A sonic scream from outside took her out of her thoughts. Covering her ears in pain, Ruby was nearly sent to her knees as she looked up to find the infernal beast making all that noise. After finding nothing in the entrance to the ship, she decided to move deeper towards the navigation deck where she had kept Weiss for her own safety.

After allowing her weapon to cool down after initially overheating, Ruby took to her sights again, this time finding the source of all her trouble.

"Is that a Tachyon?" she nervously asked out, spotting the grotesque beast that had wandered into the ship's wreckage.

Its four huge pylon-like legs dug into the floor and wandered around the ship. Its scanners began to turn in a circle as Ruby watched it begin to move towards Weiss, who she placed at the navigation deck to keep her safe from the storm. Seeing the Grimm slowly come towards her, moving unnaturally as its legs slammed through the floor. Fear dripping into her spine, she petal bursted into a vent looking to get a better view.

Crawling through the vent, Ruby followed through and ended up right above the beast. Its head was pushed back into its disproportionate, vaguely humanoid body. Shaking with fear, she watched as the beast walked closer and closer right until she saw its red scanner pass over Weiss's body. Weapons came out of the beast's legs as Ruby watched in horror as a targeting laser began to creep up on her unconscious ally.

Taking out her sniper rifle, she reacted immediately and shot. Her bullet ricocheted off the beast's armor and bounced around the room before nearly striking the vent, startling Ruby. Scared out of her mind, she ducked her head back inside.

Whatever this creature was, it's armor plating was far stronger than any Grimm Ruby had ever fought and given how many weapons it had, Ruby was certain that there was no way she and Weiss were ever taking this thing out. Not alone.

Which meant all she had to do was hide. But any chance of doing that was squashed when she noticed the red scanner highlighting her location. Breathing rapidly, Ruby prepared her semblance before a swarm of lasers managed to rip her out of her hiding location.

She may not be able to win a fight against this thing but that wasn't going to stop her from buying time for both her and Weiss. Time for Yang to hopefully arrive and save the day.

* * *

Turns out forcing the Afterburner and running through a Grimm was a pretty terrible solution overall, if not a very fast solution. Despite being able to deal with the Grimm almost immediately, it also meant Yang had no time to process any information about her direction.

Which just so happened to be off the cliffside. Tumbling through the floor, both Yang and Blake barely jumped off Bumblebee before it was sent into the crashed ship. Slamming against the wreckage, Yang wondered how on earth it was still standing as she attempted to get up only to fall.

"Slow down there daredevil. You just took a huge fall." Blake said, helping her up.

"I'll be fine… in a couple of minutes." She replied with a weak smile.

"Is there an ion storm?" Blake asked, making Yang look to the sky to confirm her suspicion and sure enough, there was an ion storm.

"Crap! Ruby and Weiss are on their own right now! We need to get them out of there!" She said, nearly pushing Blake out of her grab and limping over to Bumblebee.

Ember Celica began to heal her sprained ankle as she limped her way through the wreckage, Blake right behind her.

"Did you disable some of your rig's systems?" She asked.

"I was hit by an EMP Yang. I don't think I'm going to have much more than my semblance active." Blake replied.

"Alright, then let's pack up what we need. I think I can fit all of us on Bumblebee if I remove one of the storage units on it. Although it's gonna be a tight squeeze." Yang replied, feeling her ankle recover mostly.

"Let's hope the Schnee won't complain." Blake commented.

"Schnee?"

"You didn't recognize the heiress of the SDC that's on your ship?"

A Schnee? On Patch? Why wasn't there any news about this sooner? Such an important figure in the SDC should have attracted quite the storm due to her disappearance and given how much Dust was on the ship this had to be someone close.

But no. There was no news about some major disappearance or even about the SDC in a long while. Normally there would constantly be reports from some news outlets about the many unfair practices of the SDC against their workers in their mining colonies. However, it seemed that the last few days there had been zero reports on an event.

'Life with the richest family in the Remnant system must have sucked if she wanted to leave. What might have happened between her and her family to cause this?' Yang pondered.

Any further thoughts she had were immediately quashed, as she heard a pained gasp from Ruby.

"RUBY! Blake come on!" Yang exclaimed as she heard a thud against the wrecked ship.

Arming her gauntlets, she ran inside the wreckage and saw Ruby on the navigation deck as The Tachyon Grimm lay over her with two of its lasers pointed straight at her.

Rage filling her veins, Yang let out an enraged scream.

"STAY AWAY FROM HER!" she bellowed before striking the Grimm with a charged shot, stunning it.

The beast turned around, facing both of its legs at Yang and showcasing its grotesque face before two burst lasers appeared from its body and began firing at Yang. Using her shotguns, she quickly leaped away, attracting the attention of the Tachyon away from Ruby and towards her.

Charging her charge shot in the air, Yang shot against the Grimm. To her horror, two constructs arose from the Tachyon's shoulders and formed a vortex shield, sending the shot right back at her. The impact took the wind out of her lungs and sent her flying out of the ship's wreckage, back to where Bumblebee was. Slamming into the hard ground, Yang silently thanked Ember Celica's more resistive aura shielding. Given how her aura was flickering rapidly, her suit's systems were almost completely disabled, and the fact that she may have bruised her back, Yang knew that this was not a fight worth taking.

The real worry through her mind right now, was what was going on with her arm. Shaking violently, her arm was starting to tear apart. Luckily, she was close to Bumblebee and by relation, close to the modding tools. Opening up the workshop, she grabbed some screwdrivers and began unscrewing the bolts. Her arm was starting to glow red hot and she knew that there was only one component not built to withstand her suit's temperature. Breathing rapidly, she frantically removed the plates covering her arms internal circuits and opened up the modding components.

Frantically searching for the red and yellow wires providing energy, she took out the pliers and immediately cut the power to the circuits. Sure, it would damage the arm but assuming they made it out- no when they made it out, Ruby would be able to fix her arm.

Ripping out the burning hot mod from her arm, she threw it onto the grass, watching as it sizzled. Breathing rapidly, she lay herself on her hoverbike and desperately tried to relax her mind. Her mind had been going on panic overdrive ever since she saw Blake get EMPed and saw her sister and Weiss on the floor, helpless against the Tachyon which almost killed them.

It broke her sense of security, her pride, her false belief that she and Ruby would be able to take on anything. And there she was, sitting helpless as that same Tachyon now attacked Blake who was all alone, without anyone to help her. Striking her bike in frustration, she tried her hardest to get off her bike but found herself unable to even stand.

Frustration rising, she again struck her bike.

'Why?! Why can't I fight through this?! Right now, they need me to be strong, and here I am, stuck on my bike like a helpless child.'

Images flashed through her head; the day she tried looking for answers. Anything that could relate to her mother. Images of her carrying Ruby in a stroller, pulling her along through a dead forest. How could she ever forget that night? It was the night that she was humbled. The night where she learned just how weak she was in this world.

She distinctly remembered being attacked by Grimm as she tried to run with Ruby. She ran and ran but eventually they caught up. In a desperate bid to keep Ruby safe, she jumped in front of the Grimm and took their blows.

They cut and slashed her arm. The pain was unbearable, but it kept Ruby alive, so she fought through it. In those moments all that was going though Yang's head was the single desire to keep her safe as long as she could. Luckily, she didn't have to do it for long.

Their Uncle had been following them and was watching guard. The scene of Uncle Qrow enraged, destroying the Grimm with his scythe and then taking both her and Ruby back to safety was forever ingrained in her brain. As was the news of her arm being amputated.

At such a young age, Yang felt her life's dreams were over. Everything she was hoping to be, dashed away, all because she was an idiot. But that time, she at least had her father to pick her back up. Not to mention a chance to regain her life with her robotic arm.

This time, if she failed there were no safety nets. There were no backup plans. Out in the badlands of Vale, it was either survive or die. Which was why she couldn't fail Ruby again. Why she wasn't going to let this Grimm be the end of her family. She was no longer the helpless little girl who tried looking for her mother in the middle of a Grimm forest.

She was Yang Xiao Long. And she was ready to burn.

* * *

Waking up, Weiss felt cold, which surprised her. Her time in Atlas, had trained her to withstand the cold with Myrtenaster thanks to her aura growing used to the climate there. Was her suit starting to fail? Had Ruby done something to her?

Her mind began racing as she found herself wrapped in a sleeping bag with… Ice Dust? Her hands moving to her Dust blade grip, she activated the hardlight blade and ran it through the fabric, ripping through it like paper. What was going on with her? Why was her aura starting to fail her?

As she rolled out of the bag, she felt pain flare up her sides again, as she clutched them to find her aura flaring up. Before she could even try to act on it however, she heard an enraged scream and several shotgun shots right in front of her. Immediately using the desks for support, she checked to her left and found… Ruby?

Running over to the unconscious girl, she grabbed her face in her hands and looked into her closed eyes. "Ruby?" she asked.

No response came.

Taking out her scroll, she immediately activated it's bioscanner and ran it over Ruby. Her worry was building into panic as she wondered what on earth was happening. Thankfully, the scan revealed Ruby's vital signs weren't critical. However, that was the least of her concerns as a tether latched its way onto the navigation desk and then another latched its way to the other side. Taking Ruby with her to the ground, Weiss dove in the nick of time as the desk was pulled out from over her and thrown.

Her eyes glued to the desk, she watched as it flew over their heads and was slammed down to the lower part of the wreckage by a Grimm. And not just any Grimm, this one was a Tachyon, a Grimm found in ion storms and was known for its technical superiority and dominance in a fight.

She had heard stories of her grandfather encountering these Grimm once and nearly dying because of them. In those days without a team of people you could trust, even the lowliest of Grimm could easily become a death sentence. And that was especially the case with Tachyons.

Often entire Hunter teams were needed to handle such Grimm and even then, the bonds of the team must be unshakable in each other to even give the team a sliver of hope in winning the fight. They would also need to make sure that they held a technical edge and could control the fight.

All things that Weiss was certain she couldn't do. Especially not with her current group of companions. Hiding as she snuck up on the scene, she watched as the Tachyon fired burst lasers at some figure in the distance whose black body camouflaged it perfectly with the destroyed wreckage.

The Tachyon fired its tethers trying to grab onto its combatant but somehow all of them missed as the fighter, with her inhumane agility managed to dodge them. Looking back to the Dust storage room, Weiss remembered Rock Dust's overall resistivity to lightning and if used correctly could serve as a counter against lightning Dust.

Small problem was that using Rock Dust indoors could cause the ship to fall apart.

Before she could even think anything further about her next move however, she felt a sharp tug on her clothes. Turning around she found Ruby looking at her, pleading.

"Weiss please, you aren't in any position to fight."

"Thank you for your concern, but I'm not going to sit here and let a Grimm send us both to our deaths." She sharply retorted before pulling out her dust blade and made her way to the Dust storage unit. A handy thing about her weapons was that both of them were heavily configurable with Dust. One of the handier applications of this was being able to use her Dust blade as a controller for Dust. That included Rock Dust.

As she fitted her Dust pouches with the various Dust crystals and rearmed Eispunkt's Dust Chamber, she heard another roar which made her almost drop the crystal on the ground. Coming outside she found the Grimm had managed to tether its combatant. She watched as the combatant desperately struggled against the metallic wiring. It was the Faunus from before who had come to Weiss's aid on the flight.

Watching her struggle as she tried to break through her bindings, she immediately noticed that the Tachyon wasn't just holding her in place but was also charging up an attack. And given the blue sparks Weiss was seeing coming off, she was pretty sure that whatever it had in mind was going to kill the Faunus. Despite all her problems with the Faunus, she didn't share her father's bigoted beliefs.

Using the Dust in her Dust Blade she sent a boulder towards the beast and disbalanced it before it could electrocute the Faunus. Watching the Faunus drop to the floor, she plunged her Dust Blade into the ground and sent a spike wall of rocks towards the Grimm staggering it managed to respond. The same tethers that once held the Faunus captive now came towards her. Taking out her revolver she shot down two but was unable to take down the other three.

As the metallic tether wrapped around her body, she used the Rock Dust in her Dust blade to raise a wall of rocks to flatten the wires of the tethers. As they were flattened the beast let out a scream of agony as the tethers slowly unwrapped, leaving Weiss free to attack further. Using her semblance to give herself a boost, she raised rock walls all around the beast she flattened three of the beast's legs. But right as she was about to squashed the last leg, her body failed her again.

Collapsing to the floor, she suddenly felt herself unable to breathe and was left on the floor gasping for air. Staring to black out she tried to cover the Grimm, she desperately tried to bring up the last wall to trap the Grimm but found her energy fade as her hand fell to the ground. As she lay there unable to move, she prayed for something to finish what she couldn't and someone to make sure her sacrifice wasn't in vain.

* * *

Blake had no idea why the Schnee even bothered to save her. To her, all the Schnees were the same. Bigots and racists who viewed the Faunus as nothing more than slaves for their never-ending greed and desire to control the production of Dust all over the Remnant system. To think one of them would have bothered to even try to save a Faunus was like thinking oil and water mixed.

And yet, this one was different. Instead of leaving her to die, she jumped in the fight and saved her from electrocution. She watched as that very same girl used her Dust to nearly incapacitate the Grimm entirely. Much to her horror however, she watched as the girl fell to the floor as her aura failed her. Watching it flicker and fade all over her body, Blake felt nothing but pity for the poor girl as her last attempt to lock the Grimm in place failed.

As she saw the Grimm break out of its bindings,, it finally shook Blake out of her shock. Recovering her fallen pistol, she quickly fired it to gain the Grimm's attention. Then using her semblance, she managed to distract the Grimm long enough to regain her katana. Activating it's hardlight sheath, she immediately slashed through a tether that attempted to grab onto her. Running in a zigzag pattern, she was able to easily make out the predictable movements of the tethers and dodged each and every single one of them using her grappling hook.

As she rushed over to the unconscious heiress, she immediately scooped her up and began to pull her out of the wreckage of the ship, so far she had the Grimm's attention meaning as long as she could avoid getting shot by it's lasers she would be fine.

Luck however was not on Blake's side, as she was about to exit the wreckage, she was struck in the back by a laser shot. Falling to the floor, her aura flickered rapidly and broke. Grabbing her pistol, she aimed it back at the towering beast which approached her menacingly. Hearing what seemed to be the Grimm's attempt at laughter, Blake desperately began looking for any weaknesses, anything she could exploit.

But there was nothing. It seemed that she had finally ran out of luck. She was going to die here, alone protecting a Schnee of all people. What an irony.

She closed her eyes and waited for the shot to come. For it to end her life, the life she chose to throw away when she joined the White Fang. The life she chose to throw away with Adam. But it never came. Instead all she heard was the familiar sound of a hoverbike coming and the Grimm screaming out in agony.

Opening her eyes, she found the Grimm staggering back into the rock wall, and to her side, her friend Yang, looking more than ready to end this fight.

* * *

**A/N: And we're back! I will have to make a slight change to how I upload the chapters on all my stories from now on but for now enjoy the chapter. As always huge shoutout to 0neWhoWanders!**


	8. Evasion

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 6: Evasion**

* * *

Facing down a Tachyon wasn't something Yang was looking forward to doing when she went on this journey with her sister to Vale. All she knew was that at one point she was going to be facing one of these beasts and she needed to be ready, not just for herself but also for her sister.

Of course, she wasn't planning on protecting the two other girls who also managed to crash land on this planet, but given how each of one of them was at least partially responsible for keeping both her and her sister alive, she was more than willing to include them into the group of people she protected.

Her aura still hadn't managed to fix her up enough so that she could walk, but she still had the capability to drive and that meant she had a vital role to play in getting everyone out of this mess alive. Meaning, first order of business was dealing with Weiss and getting Blake out of the Beast's range.

"Blake! Take this and get Weiss out of the wreckage, we're leaving this place once I get Ruby out of here., make sure you can stabilize her aura, While I'm getting Ruby out. Now hurry!" Yang exclaimed, dropping a medical kit and firing a few shotgun rounds to attract the Tachyon's attention to herself.

Maneuvering Bumblebee all over the wreckage, she dodged the two tethers sent out at her with a few evasive moves. Turns out she still handled like a dream, effortlessly dodging the two tethers and allowing her more than enough room to formulate her own plan. In Bumblebee's storage unit, she had left a piece of Earth Dust that she and Blake had recovered from their earlier visit to the abandoned colony.

If she could figure out a way to activate it in a volatile manner, she could trap the beast and finally be able to escape. The Tachyon had more than managed to convince her that this was a beast that none of them were quite ready for and as such, their only hope lied in escape. All that mattered now was making sure Ruby could get out too.

Putting the pedal quite literally to the metal, she got a new idea. Rushing at the Tachyon, she flipped on the afterburner on Bumblebee and dodged the laser shots pointed at her, before landing between the Tachyon's legs with the storage unit she had thrown which landed right between the Tachyon's legs. "Fetch!"

Sharply turning the afterburner, the fumes reached the storage unit Yang braced herself and… wasn't moving? The Tachyon had managed to recall its tethers and had now essentially stopped Yang from even moving by latching them onto Bumblebee. Desperately trying to escape, she tried shooting the Grimm with Dawnbreak, only to find the shot captured by the Grimm like before and now being aimed right towards her head.

But before she could even think about blocking, a ricochet shot from behind the Grimm bounced off the roof of the wreckage and struck the storage unit, activating the Dust and trapping the Grimm in a rocky prison. As the Tachyon bellowed in agony, she looked to the navigation deck to find her sister, looking down at her with her weapon holstered and a weak smile.

"RUBY! Come on let's go!" Yang exclaimed, unable to control her joy at finding out her sister was alive.

"It's good to see you too! Is Weiss okay?" Ruby asked, managing to slide off the railing and jumping onto Bumblebee.

"Blake's currently dealing with her, once she gets her aura stabilized we're getting the hell out of here!" she hurriedly explained while using her shotgun gauntlet to bust a hole through the ship, giving them another exit.

Hearing the beast let out an anguished scream of agony, Yang felt it was more than time for them to leave.

"Where's your charge mod?" Ruby asked, gesturing to the more barebones appearance of Yang's arm as the two of them escaped from the ship.

"It got destroyed, I overused it," Yang replied with a sigh as they converged on Blake's position. "I'm sorry Rubes, I know you would've wanted me to use it a little more carefully- "

"No! It's okay! Knowing you, I knew that even if you overused it wasn't going to be for something useless," Ruby replied, giving Yang a hug.

Accepting the hug, Yang slowed as they finally arrived at Blake's location.

"Thanks Rubes," Yang said to her sister, before heading up to meet with Blake.

"Is she good?"

"Yeah. Just make sure you don't try any 'sudden moves'. After all, I don't want you to end up destabilizing her aura again." Blake replied, closing up the medkit and picking up Weiss's unconscious body.

"Haha, very funny. Now how about we get out of this place?" Yang laughed at the jab, before taking Weiss from Blake.

"No arguments from me."

"Rubes, I'm going to need you to hold on to Weiss for me. Think you can do that?" Yang announced, setting down Weiss on Bumblebee.

"Uhhhhh, sure!" Ruby replied sheepishly, earning a look of surprise from Yang. What had gone down between the two in the time she was with Blake?

Putting the question out of her mind, Blake got on board Bumblebee and quickly plotted a course for them to follow. Hearing loud screaming from the inside of the ship, fired up the engines.

And in good time too, as she heard the sound of rocks crumbling and noticed an ionic smell in the air. But that didn't matter. Right now, evasion and survival were much higher priorities because there was one thing that they couldn't afford to lose. Each other.

* * *

Blake got lucky with the Tachyon. If it wasn't for Yang's incredible resilience and presence of mind, her and Weiss would have been just other nameless bodies lost to the unforgiving badlands of Vale. It was clear that these lands were nothing like the expanse of Mistral. Where there was security in knowing that the expansive greenery was as much her ally as it was her enemy, Vale felt like she was exposed and vulnerable at all times, with no real places to hide or gain an advantage. Out here there was a simple rule, fight or die.

Luckily Blake was pretty good at adapting. Be it outer space raiding or the wilderness of far off planets, she was comfortable enough to fight in them. Vale would be no different. In fact, it might be a little easier, given how the small team she had seemed to pretty driven towards keeping each other alive.

The only time she had ever felt such camaraderie was… back when she was with the White Fang. Back when she was still deluded about her purpose. Back when she thought all that she was doing was going to bring the change she wanted for the Faunus. When she hoped the violence would improve the lives of Faunus; all it seemed to do was bring fear.

The only change she seemed to be bringing was in justifying the fear humanity had for the Faunus. Sure, people respected the Faunus but that was more out of fear than genuine respect. That wasn't what she wanted for the Faunus. that wasn't what she wanted to change when she joined the White Fang. And so, she left.

Now all she could hope was that among the Hunters, she could correct some of the wrongs she had committed and maybe, just maybe try to improve the general perception of the Faunus, the right way.

For that, well she would need a team and so far all of them seemed to genuinely want her well-being. Yang was directly responsible for saving her life and Ruby was currently making the MAD to fix Blake's combat rig. Even the Schnee, chose to abandon her own safety to save her life.

However, she wasn't feeling safe in the abandoned town she had taken refuge in. Strangely the Grimm presence had been almost completely wiped out, but the surprising thing was the number of modules she had found around the place. Removing it from the dead spinal matrix of a fallen creep, she found a module for a pistol. Seeing as how Gambol Shroud had two pistols for its weapons, such a conversion wouldn't be too hard to make.

Especially with the tinkerer they had on their side.

"Ruby?" she asked, coming up on the tinkerer.

"Hi Blake! Are you doing okay?" Ruby sakd, cheerful as ever.

"Better than before at least," she admitted. "Uh I just wanted to ask, when you're done with my combat rig if you could help me alter my weapon? I found a mod for a pistol and hoped you could help me out with- "

"Say no more! I'll get to work on it right after I'm done with your suit!" She replied with a grin.

It was odd to meet someone so full of life, so naïve and genuine about wanting to help. It reminded her a lot of herself actually. Before she had chosen to destroy that version of herself by running off with Adam. In a strange way, Ruby represented what Blake might have been, had it not been for the White Fang.

But eventually, someone like her would have to face the fact that the world wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Ruby would have to learn that in this unforgiving world, there was little room for mercy and that the real monsters weren't the ones with scary fangs or big guns but the people among them.

"The MAD is ready Blake, let's get out whatever that Adam guy did to you." she heard by Ruby, breaking her out of her thoughts.

Watching as Ruby took out an aura lock tool, she had taken from her crafting station she had from and placed it on her exosuit, Blake nervously swallowed as she allowed it to lock her suit again. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to face Adam eventually especially if she wanted to remove whatever influence type Adam still had on her.

That still didn't make it any easier. in fact, it made it even harder. Breathing heavily, she tried her hardest to calm down, but the rigid state of her suit left her mostly unable to move, even if she wanted to . It was almost certain that the influence Adam had on her was in the core systems of her suit and seeing as how it was directly tied to her aura, taking it off wouldn't be solving anything. This was something she had to purge from her own aura by herself.

At least she wasn't alone, as was evident by Ruby's decision to call Yang.

"Yang! Can you come over here?"

"Sure, thing Rubes! What is it?" came a reply from outside the door and sure enough, the blonde came over, carrying a huge box.

"What are you doing?"

"Scavenging for supplies, we need to restock on food after all. I found a bunch of REMs. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of strawberry filled onesin this box. Why did you call me anyway?"

"We're going to remove all the modules which have been affecting Blake's combat rig. I think it might go a little easier if you stay with her since she's going to be relieving some painful memories."

"Sure." Yang dropped the box and went over to Blake. Despite the fact they had only known each other for two days, Blake was already feeling much safer, knowing that Yang was around.

The blonde's presence had a much more liberating effect on her, making her feel somewhat free of the chains of guilt and shame she had bound herself with. Her smile had an odd way of reassuring Blake that in the end it was all going to be okay. As she flashed that exact smile to Blake and sat down right next to her, Blake immediately she began to calm down.

"Hey, I don't know what this Adam guy did to you, but I do want you to know that we're all still here for you. You aren't alone. me, Ruby, even Weiss will be by your side no matter what." Yang said, squeezing her hand.

Those simple few words 'You aren't alone' had already taken away so much of the fear and worry that had been building up in her mind over the last few days because if there was anything she feared, it was facing Adam alone again. Not after the things he did to her.

"Alright Blake! I hope you're ready!" came Ruby's cheery voice from behind her as she felt a metallic device being put on her head.

Steeling her nerves, she gave a thumbs up.

"Here we go!" Ruby said, as she flipped a switch and activated the machine.

She was only briefly able to hear Ruby mumble something to Yang before her vision faded and showed her an inner vision of her aura.

It was structured much like… her house in Menagerie. Looking on at the house, she wondered whether or not her mother and father even knew what had happened to her. It had been so long since she had even bothered to even call, and ever since she left Adam, she had been more concerned with surviving and getting to Vale.

Seeing no other place but her house as the only place worth of interest in her aura's landscape, she entered the place.

Unlike much of her past, her life in Menagerie was mostly untainted. She remembered the days she spent as a little kitten, running around the halls of her house. Free of any responsibility or guilt. Back then she didn't have to care about surviving. All she had to do was live.

Hearing soft excited whispers in her house, Blake was taken back to when she was just a little girl. The memory was a simple one. It was the first time her mother made Tuna and rice for her. She vaguely remembered asking Kali about the strange piece of fish that was mixed in with her rice.

She also remembered her mother's strong yet firm arms, holding her back from simply devouring the fish, even feeding it to her when she eventually ended up having no idea how to eat both food items together.

What she would've given just to have those same arms wrap around her once again. Just to have them secure her one more time and tell her that they were still there for her and that they would always be there for her.

But did she deserve it? In her own mind, she couldn't help but deny the fact that she was anything like the soft, sweet girl her parents had when she was a child. What would have her past self said to her if she had seen how far she had fallen?

Would she have scoffed at herself, thinking it would be impossible? Or looked at her with fear at what she turned in to? That very thought brought tears to her eyes as she remembered everything she lost when she had chosen Adam over her parents.

Wiping them away, she continued down the hall noticing red tints across the house. Was Adam's influence spreading even here? Looking back, she noticed that to her horror the path she had traveled had turned a bloody red and the once clean and pristine house that lay behind it, was replaced by the image of a tattered and broken down house. Seeing a figure approach from the flames, she shuddered as she was able to make out Adam's familiar visage.

Parlyzed with fear, she watched Adam slowly walk closer and closer towards the hallway, a smile on his face the entire time.

"Relieving happier memories?" He asked, his left hand on his sheath.

Finding her voice, she responded.

"I thought I made myself clear Adam, you weren't welcome any longer."

"Awww, Blake… I still remember when you said I was your happiest memory. Seems like that was just another lie. I wonder how many more of your promises were also just that." He shot back, his smile fading into an expression of dismissal.

"I didn't make that promise to you. I made it to the Faunus I saw in Menagerie. the one who was also training, always fighting, always improving. Not because he wanted to bring about senseless murder and violence, but because he believed in the true vision of the White Fang."

"The true vision?" Adam laughed. "Oh Blake, it seems like you've been disillusioned by your time away from the White Fang. I think it's time I reminded you just what that was."

Watching as he drew his blade and sent an aura slash her way, Blake finally broke out of her fear and pulled up her own sword blocking the impact. Adam sent another downward slash, which she responded with a horizontal one. but as she prepared for the third, she was blindsided by a lunge from the Bull Faunus.

Thrown into the room behind her, she watched as the ground around Adam cracked and faded, with the hallway she had once been in beginning to fall apart behind him.

"See, the thing is Blake, I haven't lost my drive towards making sure the Faunus come out on top. You have. You used to be a fighter, driven by a cause, my cause. But now? Now, you're nothing more than a weak coward. You accuse me of having lost my drive, but I think you really need to ask that question to YOURSELF!" Adam snapped, slashing at her.

A wave of red energy came across the room, this time striking her square against her chest, throwing her against the desk in the room.

"Seems like your best skill hasn't changed from before. I'm shocked at how I even thought you were a fighter." He sneered before landing another slash on Blake's body. "You can't run forever Blake. Sooner or later you're going to have to face me. And when you do, it's going to be just you and me by ourselves."

She was losing this fight. On her own, she was nothing against Adam. He was just too strong and far too driven for Blake to come out on top. It had been foolish to even try to remove Adam from her exosuit. And now she was going to die, in her own mind. The very place she could trust the most was now going to become her tomb.

The sting of defeat, however, was being waived off by a strange warmth in her right hand which was even more strangely without her weapon. Soon that same warmth spread all over her body. Breathing heavily, she wondered just who gave her the strength.

A voice, Yang's voice rang in her head, loud and clear.

"You're the one in charge here Blake, not 'Adam'. He's nothing more than an intruder."

An intruder. That's all Adam was. He wasn't her mentor, nor her friend or her partner anymore. He was nothing more than an unwelcome guest. And her family was more than well versed in dealing with those people.

"You're wrong Adam, I'm not alone. Not anymore at least." She said, standing up defiantly. "And you are no longer welcome inside my head."

Taking a page from Yang's book, she gathered up as much aura as she could and slammed the ground with her fists. Altering the dimensions of the room, she made the ground beneath Adam give way and let it take him to the place he deserved to stay in.

**Far, far away from Blake.**

* * *

**A/N: Another chapter another day. I'm sorry the upload schedule isn't consistent but I do have some exciting news once this arc is over. Again huge shoutout to 0neWhoWanders.**


	9. Reassurance

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at the Rooster Teeth.  
Chapter 7: Reassurance**

* * *

Waking up never felt so terrifying yet so relieving before to Weiss.

Ever since she blacked out while protecting Blake, her mind had been in a state of constant terror, wondering whether or not she had been left behind. Recklessly, she had lashed out against the Grimm and for that she nearly paid with her life.

She could only vaguely remember the Faunus, defending her before her mind had been plunged back into nightmares. No matter how old she grew, the scars of her upbringing never seemed to fade. They always stung like fresh wounds, no matter how much time passed.

And this time was no different.

It started the same as before, with Weiss alone on her bed, waking up to hear commotion from outside. She knew she shouldn't go out; she knew she wasn't supposed to hear it. But curiosity won over her, as it always did. The words never seemed to change.

"I am merely doing my duty for this company!" came the familiar voice of her father, booming through the door.

"And when did your duties involve neglecting your family just so you can make a profit?! Your daughters need their father, not this pathetic excuse of a businessman." Came her own mother's voice, heavy with the alcohol she had been drinking.

"Your father left me in charge of making sure this company didn't fall into the ground. I swore to your father on his deathbed that I would ensure his company would be in better hands and I'll be damned if I fail his last wish. I would've expected you to understand."

"Understand?! You expect me to understand, when you very clearly use your own daughters for each and every single one of your exploits. When you neglect them each and every single day by choosing to serve the company as if it's the only thing that matters to you?!"

"I'm surprised it even took you this long to figure out on your own. The company is what matters to me. That's why I even bothered to join this family in the first place."

"You… you backstabbing, piece of- "

"Now, now, let's not get hasty, ever since I came into this family, profits have only been increasing, you and your daughters can live in peace without ever having to worry-"

"You won't be doing anything. I'm stopping you right here right now. You will no longer be the head of the SDC as per the document that sealed our marriage if we divorced."

"About that document of yours. I'm afraid there's been some revisions to it."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Anything's possible Willow, you of all people should know that."

"Our children, you're just going to abandon them?"

"Like you haven't been? Drinking away your sorrows, ever since our first fight. What do you think they would learn once they find out that their mother is just another drunkard? You're lucky none of them even know just how bad it's gotten for you, Willow. But don't worry, I'll make sure to take good care of them. Better than you ever did."

Nearly every year she faced one of those visions, and it always had the same impact. She could even remember her response to that event; attempting to go to her mother only to be stopped by her father who told her,

"I'm sorry dear, but mommy's a little bit unwell. You're going to have to wait before you can go see her."

"But, but."

"Quiet child. Your mother needs some time alone, and that's that," came the words from her father, silencing her again. "Do not, go into her room. Okay Weiss?"

Later that day, she tried to visit her mother, despite her father's wishes. And what she saw, was something that finally uncovered the truth behind all of it. In just those brief few moments she finally saw past the fronts her mother and father had put up. in those fleeting moments she finally saw what had really been happening.

And her reward for her curiosity? Being forced into her room by her father and being beaten for the first time in her life.

That day exposed the cruel reality of her own family, that day Weiss Schnee stopped believing in the purity of the Schnee name. That day, she finally saw the truth. And then the vision faded, replaced instead with a vision of one of the hardest days of her life.

She was hunched over, panting in exhaustion. Today was supposed to be the day of her escape, her ship had long been waiting and she had already transferred all the Dust she needed. All that was left was getting out of that prison she once called her home.

But her efforts escaping were quickly halted by the presence of a Grimm. A Mimic to be exact. How a Grimm even managed to get into her home was beyond her understanding, what she did know for sure was that the Mimic had taken the shape of one of her family's armor suits.

Why her father even held on to those pieces of armor, despite them being nothing more than relics of the past was beyond her, but that didn't matter. What did, was getting out of this house alive.

Despite its heavy armor slowing it down, the fight was no cakewalk, as she had found out quite personally from a series of surprisingly well-placed strikes and punches. The fight had forced her to not use her revolver or even her glyphs for fear of making too much noise.

Without much of her toolkit, the only thing Weiss could actually rely on was her swordsmanship, which given her current target, wasn't the most effective strategy for taking it out. However, she was able to whittle down the Mimic to its knees. The fight was coming to an end.

Dodging a strike with a slide and then grappling to the neck chink of the armor, she plunged her rapier through its neck, exactly as she did when she escaped. But this time, something was… different.

Instead of the rapier ripping through the armor like paper, it was deflected out of her hands as sparks came over her hands, burning them and stunning her. At that moment, she was grabbed and thrown to the ground. Her aura shattered; she could only look up in horror, as the Mimic regained its blade.

Trying her hardest to get up, she suddenly felt… chained and bound. Desperate, she tried pulling herself up to her feet, only to find her efforts to be in vain. Somehow, she was stuck to the ground, chains binding her hands and legs, unable to move and completely disarmed. Struggling to even raise her arms, she looked up finding the Mimic's blade hurtling towards her neck.

As the blade connected with her neck, she screamed.

* * *

Ruby's day had been rather stressful up until that point, after all, helping Blake in the middle of the night with almost no sleep and almost no rest made her feel pretty tired. That, added with the worry of wondering when Weiss's condition would improve, made her a nervous wreck as she was setting up the MAD.

Although she was probably doing a good job of hiding it, as neither Yang nor Blake seemed to call her out for it. Her stress did not go away while she was dealing with Blake's rig as in the middle of the process the bad mod ended up showing her a nightmare!

Completely caught off guard by the events that transpired, Ruby panicked as Blake's vitals began to drop. All her training with removing mods on Yang's arm and her weapons couldn't possibly have accounted for when the individual in question began convulsing and was starting to have their aura flicker violently.

Thankfully, while she was panicking, Yang had already sprang into action and moved to Blake's side, comforting her long enough to finish the procedure safely and remove the bad module which turned out to be nothing more than a bad nanobug. Seriously, who designs a hacking module to look like a bug?

Anyways, almost as soon as it was out of Blake's exosuit, Yang scooped it up in her robotic hand and threw it straight across the room. After checking up on Blake's vitals, using a bioscanner from the table, she helped her out of the chair. While she was going into the building to find her a place to sleep, she called out to Ruby and said. "Make sure to check up on Weiss before you go to sleep Rubes, I'm just going to-"

After letting out a yawn herself, she continued. "-Get Blakey here to a bed and get some sleep myself. If you need me, just call. See ya in the morning Rubes."

"Alright sis. Goodnight," Ruby replied, heading to Weiss's room.

"Goodnight, Crater Face."

"Yang!" Ruby exclaimed, feigning annoyance which ended up getting a laugh out of her sister.

Sure, Yang was a little prone to teasing, but Ruby always knew she never meant it and was all the more grateful for her constant quips to help offset some of the more… serious times in her life. She truly was lucky beyond the stars to have a sister like her.

Heading off to check up on Weiss, Ruby was horrified to hear a scream from her room. Almost using her semblance, she burst through the door and found Weiss on her bed, breathing heavily clutching her throat.

Running to her side, she asked her, "Oh my god! Are you okay?"

Weiss seemed to still be dazed as she took no notice of Ruby's arrival until she was already by her side.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a couple of bad dreams," she replied quickly. "Where are we?"

"In one of the workstations of an abandoned town. but actually, are you okay?"

"It's nothing Ruby, nothing you need to be bothered about," Weiss replied, trying to divert the attention away. but Ruby wasn't having it. Something was very clearly hurting Weiss, and she wasn't going to ignore it.

"Weiss, can you trust me?" she asked.

"Not completely," She replied. Not off to the best start but she was no quitter.

"Please, I can tell something's wrong. You're still recovering from a sickness that nearly killed you twice!"

"You won't understand Ruby."

"I can try," She continued, now squeezing Weiss's hand. "You can trust me."

"Fine!" Weiss finally relented. "I didn't come to Vale for the most normal of reasons. I came here because… I wanted to leave my family behind and start anew."

"Why?" Ruby asked, perplexed as to why anyone would want to leave behind their family. As far as she knew, family was easily one of your closest bonds. The one thing you could always trust to keep you safe. The one thing that was always there to support you.

"My family isn't like most, Ruby. I'm the daughter of Jacques Schnee, head of the Schnee Dust Company."

"You mean the company that's responsible for all the Dust we get?" she pondered aloud, recalling the snowflakes on the Dust crates that Weiss carried. Was Weiss really the daughter of the man who owned the company?

"Yes, exactly that. It's how I got all the Dust I needed." Weiss replied, confirming Ruby's suspicions.

"But isn't he a good man? at least that's what all the advertisements say of him." Ruby said. In nearly every single one, Jacques was shown off as kind, benevolent and as the only source of Dust in the Remnant system, which she already knew was untrue as she had seen plenty of companies that had sold Dust under their own names.

To this, Weiss sighed. "No Ruby, my father is none of those things. He is callous, arrogant, vindictive and overbearing. His only concerns have always been Lien and showcasing himself as a symbol of success. His PR team won't tell you about the way he abused Faunus rights to grant them minimum safety precautions, or about the appalling way Faunus criminals are forced into mining outposts to live out their lives in what is practically slavery, or even the horrific punishments he hands out to the people who try to escape."

Ruby didn't always believe the advertisements that the SDC had shown, but this was confirmation that Jacques truly wasn't who he made himself out to be.

"Do you want to talk about it more?" she asked.

"Not really. I would prefer to leave him in the past." Weiss replied, making it clear to Ruby that perhaps she was overstepping her boundaries.

"Okay Weiss, if you ever want to talk more about him, just remember, I'm always open." She said, patting Weiss's shoulder.

"Thanks Ruby."

"Soooo, are you going to head to sleep?"

"With an empty stomach and dying of thirst? I think that's a pretty bad idea." Weiss said.

"Good point. My sister found us some MREs, I think there might be some blueberry ones."

"Don't you have anything else we can find to eat?" Weiss asked, notably disgusted and the prospect of eating one of those MREs, which was something Ruby understood

"I mean we could always try scavenging this place, although I do think the food's a little expired." Ruby replied, gesturing a rusty can with the label beans on it.

Seeing Weiss face's fall, Ruby immediately said "I'm pretty sure there's some blueberry MREs. You didn't seem to be too bothered by them when we last ate. Should I get them for you?"

"Yes, I think that's a better idea."

"Alright, a butt ton of blueberry MRE's coming right up!" she said, using her semblance and speedily heading out to the box Yang had put down containing the MREs.

After grabbing a couple of strawberry and blueberry flavored ones, she rushed back to Weiss in record time.

"That was fast."

"Hehehe, my semblance comes in handy when it comes to simple stuff like this." She replied, arms filled with strawberry and blueberry MREs.

"I imagine it does."

"Don't worry about thirst, these MREs are also able to quench that as well. They may be disgusting to eat, but they always fill you up in jiffy!" she replied, intentionally overexaggerating her tone. She was hoping it would maybe get Weiss to smile a little and move past her… nightmare.

"Thank you Ruby, for everything, really." She replied, taking one of the MREs and eating delicately, just like a lady would! She almost looked like a bird, pecking on her food, albeit a very pretty one at that.

"Eh, it's nothing Weiss. All in being a good partner!" she said, opening her MRE packets and shoving them in her mouth, hoping her speediness would allow her to power through the disgusting jelly like texture and instead focus on the strawberry flavor.

"I uh… also owe you an apology." Weiss said, not even halfway through her first MRE. "I should've listened to you, back on the ship."

"Hmm?"

"I know you were worried for me and you knew I shouldn't have gone out to fight the Tachyon on my own." Weiss replied, genuine sadness and disappointment filling her voice. "I'm sorry I didn't pay attention to the warning."

Swallowing her MRE as quickly as possible, Ruby immediately placed both of her hands on Weiss's shoulders and said. "Weiss, please don't beat yourself up about it. We all make mistakes from time to time."

"My mistake could've cost us all our lives." She added, surprising Ruby with the fact that Weiss chose to include all of them in that statement. Maybe she was finally opening up to being a team!

"Well we can't always be perfect. Hell, I make mistakes too! That doesn't mean I can allow myself to get beaten up by them. My sister always taught me that your mistakes don't define who you are. It's how you react to them, how you grow from them that matters." She said, keeping her voice as soft as possible. "Yes, it put us all in danger, but it didn't mean our deaths."

"Instead we kept on pushing forward. And we can grow stronger because of it. For example, now you learned that you probably shouldn't go attack a Tachyon on your own!" she continued with a grin on her face.

"So, don't worry about it, Weiss. Next time we face that Grimm, we'll make sure to pummel it into the ground!" she concluded. "Just you wait."

"I'm saying this for the third time but thank you. I haven't really had someone who's cared for me like this, since well my butler back in Atlas, Klein."

"And I'll always be happy to help you out, Weiss. Now, think you can tell me about this butler of yours?"

"Oh, He was honestly a one of a kind. He had seven personalities and each one of them, was- "Weiss began to explain with a smile on her face, exactly what Ruby wanted to see. She really ought to smile more, she was the prettiest then.

Eventually however, the exhaustion ended up getting to both of them and as Weiss comfortably yawned, she ended falling asleep. Right on her shoulder.

She could practically feel the heat rippling off her face as a rampant blush came across her cheeks at how closely Weiss had rested her head against Ruby's shoulder. After a few seconds of her heart beating out of her chest, she finally took a deep breath and decided that it was probably best if she fell asleep too.

"Goodnight Weiss." She said, very slowly moving out of the bed and moving to the bunk bed above, after closing the lights.

" **Sweet Dreams."**

* * *

**A/N: Man, I get way too busy these days. ;( Sorry for the late upload but hope you enjoy the WR crumbs.**


	10. Sparks and Spikes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am making this note to inform all of you lovely readers that I shall not be posting anymore chapters until I finish this arc. This announcement comes out of me wanting to have enough time to properly manage my life along with writing fanfics and also to help my mental health as writing fanfics has been rather draining recently. But have no fear! When I finish the arcs they shall be posted far quicker. As always keep moving forward my friends and stay safe.

**I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.**

**Chapter 8: Sparks and Spikes**

* * *

Waking up, Blake felt strangely relieved to know that her nightmare was over. As much as she wanted to move on from the incident from before, some part of her couldn't deny the fact that she was still not strong enough. That she still had a lot more to do before she could even think of facing Adam again.

What surprised Blake, however, was Yang's response to her. While she couldn't deny the fact that she and Yang had at least grown to appreciate each other given their combined prowess, she didn't expect for Yang to have… come to her aid. She didn't expect Yang to try to make sense of what was happening to her.

And yet, here she was, getting support for something she had kept from Yang.

She could faintly remember her lying her down on the bed while she was unconscious. She remembered feeling her warm hands, helping lay her to rest, much like one would do for a close friend.

But why?

Rubbing her eyes open, she tried to get up but almost immediately fell out of the bed, only being caught by… Yang?

"Easy there. Your legs are still locked in place." She said, helping her back into the bed. "I think the aura lock still hasn't disabled."

"Well, what should I do about it?" Blake asked, still jittery from her nightmare.

"I dunno. Ruby's the expert on this sort of stuff. Although I think it's on a time basis, seeing as how you are able to move your arms and stuff." Yang said, sitting down on the bed next to her.

Hearing her stomach begin to grumble, Blake wondered if they had found anything to eat to which she got the answer. "Ruby found some canned food and MREs in the lobby for us. I'm going to go check up on her soon. You stay here, I'll bring some food for you as well."

Watching her leave however, Blake was suddenly reminded of the dream, and assuming Adam was watching her through the bug he planted on Gambol Shroud, it meant that he also knew about Yang.

"Yang?" She said, trying desperately to tell her just how much danger they were all in. But for some reason her throat locked up as she tried to say the words she so desperately wanted to say. "I-I just wanted to say…"

All she had to do was just confess the truth and tell her about her past. It only would have taken one step.

"Th-thank you… For looking out for me." She said instead, crushing that hope.

"No problem Blake! Now just sit tight, okay? I'll be back soon." Yang replied, with a smile. One that Blake knew, wasn't deserved. Something had to change, before someone got hurt.

* * *

Surprisingly for Weiss, sleep ended up coming to her much more easily then she had earlier imagined, given her nightmare. Being tired out of her mind probably helped with that, as did Weiss getting some level of forgiveness for her blunder with the Tachyon. In fact, she was already beginning to suspect that her earlier nightmares were a direct result of her failure with the Grimm.

Slowly, bits and pieces began to fall into place. She recalled having talked to Ruby about her family, opening up tiny bits and pieces of her life in Atlas. She recalled telling her the truth about her father. The same father, who haunted her dreams to constantly remind of Weiss of her failures.

The same father, who undoubtedly would've chastised her for her recklessness and reminded her of the failure that she was to the destiny _he_ chose out for her. She saw the people around her like vultures, waiting for her to slip up. She expected Ruby to be the same, to pry open her mistakes and tell her she would never be the Huntress she wanted to be.

And at first, it seemed like she was going to do exactly that. But then she surprised her. Ruby actually forgave her, and she gave her a chance to actually be better. That sort of acceptance was something she never would've found in Atlas. Much less among her own family.

It was strange, to not feel like she had to be perfect all the time… and yet, she couldn't help but see it as another way she could distance herself from her father. Another thing, for which she had only Ruby to thank.

Getting up from the bed she was on, she found Ruby on the bunk above her, sleeping peacefully as she snored. Somehow, her impressions of the redhead had in just a matter of two days, gone from treating her like a nuisance, to being only mildly irritated and even genuinely surprised by her.

Ruby was far more than what she had originally written her off to be. And as it turned out, it seemed like everyone around her seemed to share that attribute. It would be wise of her to remember that.

Upon hearing her stomach growl, Weiss eventually decided to head out into the main lobby in search of some food. Moving out through the hallway of the building, she quickly ended up finding herself in the main lobby of the building. However, it turned out that she wasn't quite alone as standing in front of her was someone she could only presume to be Ruby's sister.

"Hey there." She said, as she used her metallic arm to open a cupboard where she brought out a couple of boxes.

"I take it you're Ruby's sister?" she asked, hoping to at least confirm her companion's identity.

"Yup. Yang Xiao Long. It's good to meet you…" Yang said, drawing a blank on her name.

"Weiss. Weiss Schnee." She said before moving over to sit down at a chair near the counter.

"Ah Weiss. I gotta say… you got me rather good back when we first met." Yang said, with a laid-back tone, reminding Weiss of their admittedly... violent first meeting.

"Sorry about that, I hope your ego didn't take too much of a hit?" Weiss replied, her tone matching Yang's which ended up making her laugh.

"Glad to see you aren't completely stiff." Yang said, bringing out a bunch of packages. "Thanks for looking out for Ruby back there."

"Your sister deserves the real credit. She's the one who saved my life." She said, ignoring the jab made at her and taking one of the packages on the table. It served her no purpose to be irritated with someone who had such an important role to play with ensuring her survival.

"Eh, Ruby's always amazing." She said, taking a huge bite out of what she could only assume was an MRE. "So, tell me Weiss… what brings you here into this quadrant? Wouldn't staying cozy up in Atlas be a more… safer life?"

Admittedly, getting through this conversation was going to take a lot of patience.

"It would've been if I wanted to stay stuck in a desk job wasting away my life as my father continued to drag down the SDC further and further into a hole bringing the Schnee name down with him. At least out here, I can regain some honor for the Schnee family name." she replied, still trying to keep her growing irritation in check.

"Righttt. So why come here? Why not Atlas? Wouldn't that be more convenient?"

"Let me ask you something in return, why wouldn't I want to come to Beacon? It's the most prestigious Hunter institution in the Remnant system for a reason. The best of the best come there looking for work." She replied, now beginning to lose her patience. "And I don't know about you, but if I want to reclaim any shred of dignity for my name, then I would prefer to start in the best way possible."

"But that doesn't matter much if we don't even have a plan to get to Beacon. So, I must ask. Do you even have a plan? We could be hundreds of miles away from the nearest warp station. In fact, even I can't help but realize that all we seem to be doing is running around from place to place just looking for resources to survive." Weiss said, her tone slightly more accusatory in nature, just what she wanted to get a response.

"Oooh, Ice Queen's got spikes. But to answer your question, yeah. I do have a plan. When Ruby wakes up, we're gonna head over to the CCT Tower and find out where exactly we are and find an actual path over to either a warp station or a town with Blake's help, where we can call for help from Vale. So, tell me Ice Queen, is that enough of a plan for you?" she replied, her tone not even affected by Weiss.

"I suppose it is. But can you really trust a Faunus? Especially one who nearly killed you when we first met."

"If I recall correctly, you tried the exact same thing. And even then, why do you hate them so much?"

"Tell me, have you ever had to live with the fact that the people around you, the people you cherish could die at any time? Did you ever have to live with the knowledge that just because your name… someone around you could be killed, kidnapped or tortured?"

"Family friends, board members, uncles and cousins, they spared no one. Even now I still don't know what they would be willing to do just to get to my family." Weiss said, her tone slipping into her usual anger but then again, Yang was really pushing it.

"You seriously think that every Faunus has the same goal? Like they're some kind of a hivemind?" Yang questioned, which only served to infuriate her further.

"I wouldn't know, all I was able to see in Atlas were the reports of them either destroying outposts, endangering lives or when they sabotaged SDC plants, nearly killing the researchers working there."

"Have you even bothered to actually meet one in person? You know, to actually try to get to know one person before you dismiss an entire race." Yang replied, her tone sounding far more vicious now than it was before.

"The last person that tried doing that in my family ended up poisoned by the White Fang." Weiss replied coldly.

"And you seriously think that a group of terrorists is the only description for an entire race?" Yang asked.

"Why don't you ask your friend about that?" She countered, ignoring Yang's question. After all, she owed her no answers and for supposedly being a friend all she seemed to be after was information.

"Oh, are you actually telling me that she's one of them?" Yang replied, her tone now noticeably more hostile than before.

"She might be." Weiss said, as she shrugged. "After all, someone doesn't just pick up skills like that as a runaway."

"Even if she was a member, are you really that single-minded to think that just because you have had bad experiences, means an entire species is the same?" Yang asked, slamming her robotic arm on the table. "You know, at first I thought you might have been sensible, but this is just plain ridiculous."

"Why you- "She began, before hearing a voice from behind.

"Uhm, good morning? Did I come at a bad time?" said Ruby looking at the two of them with a concerned expression.

' _Great. Let's see how this gets even more worse.'_

Entering into the main lobby, Ruby was expecting to meet her sister so that she could discuss plans for getting to Vale with Blake and Weiss (and also for some food, because hoo boy was she hungry!). What she was not expecting was for her and Weiss to be arguing which was really bad.

Ruby had only seen her sister get mad a couple of times. And almost all of them were to protect her but even then, she was somewhat terrified of her. And to think that Yang coming on Weiss, wasn't something she wanted to happen.

"What's wrong?"

"You might want to tell your friend here to I dunno, maybe consider the fact that she's being nothing more than a racist bitch!" Yang shouted out. Already not off to a good start.

"Ruby, you may want to tell your sister just how much of an ignorant buffoon she is!"

"What's happened?" She asked, still unsure as to what even caused this argument.

"Why don't you tell her your life story as well Weiss? Come on, tell her why you hate the Faunus so much?" Yang goaded, which seeing as how infuriated Weiss was getting, was probably going to be the last straw if Ruby didn't stop this, right here, right now.

"Okay, both of you please! Just stay calm." She said, stepping between them and holding them back with her hands. "We don't have time to fight amongst ourselves over this issue. None of us would've survived if we didn't work together to fight off the Grimm. And if we want to get to Vale, we need to keep on doing that. As a team."

"You wanted to talk to me about a plan to reach Beacon, right Yang?" Ruby asked, now attempting to steer the conversation away from the topic.

"Yeah, I had been thinking over it and I was kinda planning on letting you know once Blake was up- "Yang began, before they were all surprised by a voice coming from the hallway opposite to them.

"Don't wait any longer then." Came Blake's voice surprising all of them, as she managed to come over to them with a limping slightly on her foot.

"Blake, are you alright?" Yang asked, before immediately helping her sit down.

"I'm better now, my rig isn't locking up anymore but it's still a little hard to walk. I heard what happened before and Weiss isn't wrong about the White Fang. The methods they imply aren't something that should be condoned."

"See!" Weiss declared, which upon seeing that Blake still wasn't finished, worried Ruby.

"But, to generalize the rest of the Faunus of only their actions… is just untrue. There are plenty of Faunus who hate the White Fang or oppose them. It's just that people like you tend to force the people to have no other option."

"People like me?!" exclaimed Weiss, frustrating Ruby even more. Wasn't there something she could do to stop this? Didn't they realize that all this was going to do was end up hampering them in the long run?

"Why do you think so many Faunus see the White Fang as their only chance to get a better life? It's because people like you remain in power to make sure that the Faunus never get to the same level as the rest of humanity!" Blake spoke out, making Weiss get even more pissed off.

"You say that as if the Faunus haven't committed any crimes, as if they aren't guilty of the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of innocents. As if they aren't responsible for the heinous crimes they commit in the name of restoring equality." Weiss defended.

"And there you go again; do you seriously think that the White Fang is all that makes up Faunus kind in general? Do you seriously think that the White Fang's new policies have been accepted by every single Faunus?" Yang now butted in, coming in to defend Blake.

"Do you really think you humans are any better? You separate children from their families, turn us into slaves, look down upon us and try to sabotage us every time we fight for what we deserve. For so long, we've been denied the basic rights your governments say extend to everyone." Blake said, placing both her hands down onto the table and leaning to face Weiss straight in the eyes. "And yet, when the White Fang decided to challenge the societal norms, you listened. You proved it to us that the only language you listen to is violence."

"Is that so? The reforms made to provide rights to the Faunus were passed long before your lot turned into a group of terrorists!"

"And yet they were never enforced, but of course, I'm sure you wouldn't have bothered to look past the headlines." Blake continued. "It was only when the White Fang took their more, violent approach, that people actually started to care for those reforms. Until then however, you people just couldn't bother."

"So, tell me _Schnee._ Do you really think we had a choice in this matter? Do you honestly think that given the situation, the Faunus groups had any choice? And do you honestly believe that the Faunus are to be blamed for taking out their anger on the people who for so long have subjugated them like they were subhuman?" Blake concluded, leaving Ruby incredibly concerned for what Weiss might do next.

"You're wrong about one thing. You have no idea just how many consequences your actions had. You don't know how your actions, your constant efforts to gain back your 'equality' affected me or how I grew up. And quite frankly, I don't expect you to understand either." Weiss replied, before walking off and out of the room.

"Weiss, wait!" Ruby called on after her.

"No. Leave her Ruby." Yang said. "If she wants to keep on acting this way around people then I don't want her around."

"You don't mean that…"she said, rubbing her shoulder

"Do I look like I'm joking? Weiss has proven herself to be nothing more than a pain in the butt for us."

"I'm sorry Yang, but that just isn't true. She's responsible for saving my life not once but twice out there. We would never have even escaped from the Tachyon"

"Why are you even defending her? She's been nothing more than a prick to all of us."

"Because that's not who she is on the inside! Please, just let me talk to her, if she doesn't come back fine, that's on me. But before you give up on her, at least give her a chance to explain herself." Ruby pleaded. Losing a teammate, right now wasn't going to serve them any good.

"Fine, but don't be disappointed in case she doesn't come back." Yang said in a dismissive tone.

"Me and Blake are going to head up to the CCT tower and find out as much information as possible on this place. Once we bring it over to you, we'll figure out a plan to get out here into Beacon."

" _ **With or without Weiss."**_


End file.
